As ODTA settled down on their expansion, news of something called "Operation Blazing Fields" reached the city leaders. They sent their best scouts to figure out exactly what was happening. To their surprise, there were no signs of any hostile advances other than the smoldering ruins of Tennessee and Kentucky.
Days and weeks pasted as they entered the New Year, The Texan Empire made their move. With the help of the W.C.C, they invaded the outer Midwestern States then used devastating bombing campaigns to push into Indiana and Illinois. As ODTA was located in Northeastern Illinois, the bombers never actually made it up to them, President Buckle wanted to surround the city and wipe it out, however the W.C.C wanted to control ODTA, was they knew of its potential.
Unfortunately Neither region knew of ODTA's true location. The Spec Shadows had made it impossible for them to gather information on them by destroying signs, maps, billboards and more. They used wide range aerial attacks to throw off their scouts and patrols all the while 1430 WCMY relayed positions and signals to them in the hopes of fending off the attacks and throw off their sense of direction.
President Buckle and Queen Brooklyn Gates sat down for the first time and discussed their options.
"It's an honor to meet you Queen Gates of the W.C.C."
"I'm glad to see you survived the nuking, I take it you want revenge?"
"My people are demanding we glass that city, but we still have yet to locate it."
"Then we have common ground, my scouts can't seem to find record of this city anywhere, why glass them when we could subjugate its citizens."
"To be blunt, we don't trust any state lead by socialist democrats, especially the state of Illinois."
"Too bad for you, our people are thieving, while yours got nuked."
"That's we wipe that town off the god damn map!"
"We could but they'd be more useful alive than as flash-fried corpses."
"We'll see after they hit one of your cities."
Hmm, yes, we'll just see."
Eventually the time came for Operation Blazing Fields, The Texan Empire and the West Coast Conglomerate dropped Flamethrower Paratroopers into Illinois. They set the fields of soybeans and corn ablaze, flames soared into the sky as planes dumped accelerant onto the already raging inferno. Southern Illinois was in flames and so was S.Field. ODTA and the J.I.M.C had been caught off guard.