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One invasion, different worlds and victories that do not erase their cost

March of the Machine: Eight Local Fronts

Students, soldiers, artists and unlikely allies resist Phyrexia on their own worlds. These parallel fronts show how local knowledge buys survival, while the people directing the defence must answer for what their victories cost.

Why this story matters

The route in brief

The invasion is simultaneous, but its consequences are not interchangeable. A school cannot defend itself in the same way as a city built above another city, and an army of ordinary soldiers cannot make the choices available to Innistrad's necromancers. This route follows eight local fronts alongside the broader March of the Machine campaign.

These chapters are parallel accounts, not a single travel itinerary. Some end with a battle won; others buy only enough time to keep moving. The defenders include people with difficult histories, and their useful powers do not automatically make their judgments right.

The common question is what each world can save without becoming a version of the force invading it. Cooperation, memory and local knowledge answer that question more often than a universal weapon. The closing moments preserve uncertainty where the account does not establish a final fate.

Read in order or choose a turning point

Story Chapters

  1. Arcavios: the students recover the school's foundations

    Quintorius and his friends retrieve an invocation whose five parts require more than a single heroic voice.

    Liliana holds the surviving students' refuge while Quintorius, Dina, Zimone, Killian and Rootha search the Biblioplex for the Invocation of the Founders. It embodies the five elder dragons' work and must be recited together. Their escape uses a dangerously overpowered growth ritual to open a path through the building.

    Dean Nassari's attack interrupts Rootha's part. Quintorius takes it on through his own magic, spending his life to keep the invocation working. A second light erupts from within him, and he disappears as the school and its invasion portals buckle.

    The survivors have a reprieve, not an undamaged campus. Embrose is recovered alive, while Liliana tends the injured and considers whether Quintorius's disappearance means an ignited spark rather than death. Strixhaven's knowledge has defended its future, but the students must now rebuild the shelter in which that future can happen.

    Open dedicated chapter

  2. Zendikar: the old defences become an invasion engine

    Tazri and her companions challenge compleated Nahiri inside the Emeria Skyclave.

    Nahiri believes Phyrexia will perfect the home she has repeatedly tried to save. She turns the hedron network and Emeria Skyclave into a means of expanding the invasion. The danger comes from a defender who knows the world's protective machinery intimately.

    Tazri, Akiri, Orah, Kaza and Linvala reach the stronghold. Linvala's radiance disrupts Phyrexian power, and Tazri uses her halo against Nahiri's position at its centre. The keystone breaks; the Skyclave can no longer hold together.

    Akiri's ropes carry the group out of the collapse, with memories of Zareth making the escape painfully familiar. Nahiri remains inside the falling structure, but Akiri will not mistake that sight for proof that such a stubborn opponent is finished. The invasion continues below. They have damaged its coordination and recovered a chance to fight, not guaranteed the world's safety.

    Open dedicated chapter

  3. Innistrad: a rivalry makes room for cooperation

    Gisa and Geralf temporarily combine their incompatible methods against a threat neither can outlast alone.

    Gisa and Geralf initially treat the attack near Havengul as another contest between their ghoulcalling and stitched creations. Their immense separate monsters fall. Their supply of usable dead is no longer inexhaustible, and pride is becoming a practical liability.

    Geralf asks for Gisa's ruined sea creature so he can combine it with his own behemoth. She reluctantly releases her claim. The resulting creation breaks the attacking force while her ghouls dismantle the survivors.

    The alliance is effective without making the siblings kind. Their combined monster cannot survive indefinitely on land, and they immediately resume arguing about who won and who must leave. Havengul receives a moment of relief from people whose ambitions remain dangerous. The invasion changes their tactics more readily than it changes their relationship.

    Open dedicated chapter

  4. Ravnica: the person behind the invading body

    Vraska's inner refuge and Ral's exhausted aftermath refuse a simple account of either death or recovery.

    Vraska experiences compleation as a retreat into a protected part of her mind while her transformed body carries out the invasion. The remembered refuge was made by Jace. Inside it, their encounter brings her shame and desire for another chance into focus.

    The intimacy of that mental scene does not make the physical devastation unreal. Vraska remembers the acts performed through her body and struggles to distinguish the person she was from the force that used her. Jace's presence offers connection, not a public verdict on everything that has happened.

    After the invasion, Ral directs the ruined city's cleanup beside Tomik. His haemalectric device worked, but the search finds no Vraska body. This account closes on absence, not a confirmed death or a complete explanation of her escape. Ravnica must recover while that question remains open.

    Open dedicated chapter

  5. Ikoria: a victory the refugees did not choose

    Jirina's plan buys time against Lukka, but the survivors challenge the risk imposed on them.

    Jirina leads Drannith's refugees toward Lavabrink while Vivien works to stop the enormous creature directed by compleated Lukka. The column becomes bait for a confrontation with Vadrok. His destructive flame tears the abomination apart, and Vivien kills Lukka after the apex monster extracts him.

    The refugees survive the encounter, but survival does not make their consent irrelevant. Haldan and others protest that Jirina used wounded people and children without telling them the plan. Her insistence that it was necessary is not accepted as an automatic defence.

    Vivien argues that judgment must wait until the group has survived the road ahead, not that Jirina is beyond judgment. Another invasion branch opens in the distance. The reward for victory is time to walk, and the argument about leadership walks with them.

    Open dedicated chapter

  6. Eldraine: Rankle spends the last wish his way

    Rankle and Torbran find an absurdly effective use for a love potion without becoming sensible partners.

    Rankle's desire to be admired survives the collapse of Locthwain. He takes Torbran's wishing ring, spends wishes frivolously, and then confronts the transformed court and Ayara. Torbran needs to lure the invaders into an opening chasm; Rankle still wants an audience.

    The last wish makes the love potion fall as rain. The drenched legion becomes fixated on the faerie, and he draws it toward the chasm by offering the spectacle of himself. A selfish fantasy has become a weapon against an occupying army.

    The episode is funny without making the invasion harmless. Torbran's desperation is justified, the courts have been devastated, and cooperation arrives in a form he could not have designed. Rankle does something useful while remaining Rankle, not a suddenly reliable saviour.

    Open dedicated chapter

  7. New Capenna: bring down the invader's foothold

    Errant chooses a city's future over the elevated district and the transformed father who stand in its way.

    Errant and Parnesse's union celebration becomes a scene of invasion and loss. With Della and a coalition of survivors, Errant helps turn Park Heights' own structure against the force occupying it. The plan requires demolition rather than defending every prestigious building.

    Compleated Anhelo tries to draw his daughter into Phyrexia's supposed beauty. Errant refuses that single imposed vision. When Della gives the signal, she detonates the weak point and escapes as the district collapses around Atraxa's position.

    Della rescues her, and Halo's power accompanies angels into the wider Multiverse. The counterattack is a contribution to the war, not a claim that New Capenna has ended it alone. Errant reunites with Parnesse among the survivors. What the city preserves matters more than the heights it has lost.

    Open dedicated chapter

  8. Ixalan: the three hundred steps hold

    Huatli calls on the unturned elder dinosaurs as the defenders of Orazca face compleated Etali.

    Huatli's company defends the Winged Temple while Etali's corrupted storm presses against Orazca. The force includes Sun Empire soldiers and allies from beyond it. Holding the steps buys the warrior-poet time to appeal to the plane's great elders.

    Zetalpa breaks through the storm, and other elder dinosaurs join the counterattack with the surrounding hosts. Their arrival does not simply restore Etali. Zacama pins the transformed elder and kills him, ending the immediate assault through a terrible loss within the plane's own living powers.

    Huatli and Inti survive beside defenders who have kept their positions through the battle. The response turns local reverence and knowledge into a way of calling for aid. Ixalan refuses its destruction, but resistance includes mourning a being that could not be brought back by the act of defeating it.

    Open dedicated chapter

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