Project Gunrunner was a failure. Although tracking trafficked firearms was an interesting theory, the implementation resulted in its effects leaving more to be desired. Little was gained, and the war on drugs never ceased or even slowed down. Few guns were actually traced or recovered, while most remained missing. Drug cartels remained unaffected, and their operations continued.
Regardless of legality or the political storm that followed, it was clear that a new strategy was needed to combat the increasingly violent drug cartels. Therefore, American authorities decided to approach the cartels more directly.
In cooperation with the Mexican government, elements of the US military were allowed to enter Mexico under the idea that forces of both nations would conduct joint exercises and training. To comply with their newfound cooperation efforts, the US Army's Special Forces were sent to lend their expertise to the Mexican Army and Marines. At the same time, several intelligence operations were launched against Mexican cartels in secret.
Conveniently, the cartels hit a significant roadblock as the Gulf Cartel, one of the largest in the country, fell into civil war. Taking the opportunity of a weakened Gulf Cartel, the rival Sinaloa Cartel and other organizations launched a war to overthrow the Gulf Cartel and its allies. Violence and brutality skyrocketed as a new cartel took the spotlight—Los Zetas.
Southwest of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, the desert was dry and barren. On a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, a gathering between two parties was occurring. Old trucks and sedans were parked sporadically. Armed men wearing balaclavas stood around while others conversed with each other. The two parties seemed to be making a deal of some sort. Two men laughed and shook hands as they seemed to come to an agreement. They were all speaking Spanish.
Unexpectedly, in the distance, a trail of dust was coming closer to the meeting. Everyone turned to look at the dust being kicked up as a few cars were approaching. Immediately realizing the dark vehicles as Federal Police, one group in the meeting raised their guns at the other group, sensing a trap.
"Why is the Federal Police here!?" one man yelled in Spanish. "Are you trying to fuck us over!?"
The other party was confused. They felt just as exposed as everyone else because no one expected law enforcement to know they were there.
"That's not us! Put your weapons down! Someone must have leaked we were meeting here," someone yelled.
"Bullshit! This is a trap! You set us up!" the man yelled, waving his pistol in a threatening manner. "You don't fuck with the Gulf Cartel!"
Immediately, the gunmen from one side opened fire, and a gunfight now took place. Automatic fire rains bullets in all directions as everyone scrambles for cover behind the various cars they traveled in. Dozens of men were shot and killed. Within seconds, bodies fell dead as one party somehow overpowered the other. Their gunfire was accurate and efficient. Their movements were clean as if they expected this to happen.
Seconds later, right before the Federal Police vehicles arrived, the brief gunfight neared its end. It became clear that there was a significant gap in firepower, skills, and training between the two sides. One was nearly eliminated, while the other only had a few injuries. It helped that their synced sudden attack killed most of their enemies before they could retaliate.
The Federal Police trucks arrived, and a squad of officers in combat gear jumped out with their weapons facing forward. Then they opened fire without warning, adding more chaos to the firefight.
The gunmen who initially dominated the battle took cover and tried to back away. Someone within the group then yells to the officers in broken Spanish, "Hold your fire! Hold your fire! We are Special Forces! This is a government operation! We are fucking Special Forces!"
The Federal Police officers ignored the statement and continued to shoot up the cars the gunmen hid behind. Then, switching to English, one of the gunmen yelled to the others, "They're not listening! What do we do!?"
"They are either stupid or corrupt! They shouldn't be here! Light 'em up! We have no choice!"
Several grenades were thrown from behind the cars and landed near the Federal Police. The intense gunfire was broken as explosions kicked up dirt and dust into the air. The gunmen jumped out of cover and started gunning down the Federal Police officers, ceasing the brief pause in gunfire. Showing no mercy, the gunmen ensured that no one survived the battle, not the Gulf Cartel members nor Federal Police officers.
When the dust settled, the gunmen breathed sighs of relief. Some of them were shot but survived. Underneath the civilian clothes they wore, their bulletproof vests absorbed nearly all the bullets that impacted.
One of the gunmen walked around the remaining carnage. He lifted his baseball cap and pulled off the black balaclava from his head, revealing himself as Ken.
He looked around the scene, in disbelief of what happened, still clutching his rifle.
"Load up!" someone orders. "We were never here. This was between the Gulf Cartel and Federal Police. Get any car that still runs, and let's get out of here, now!"
The men scramble for vehicles with the least damage and quickly leave the scene. The purpose of the meeting was initially to gain connections with members of the Gulf Cartel, but the Federal Police's unexpected arrival destroyed all that. Now the American operators had to retreat to their safehouse to figure out another way to gather intelligence.
In the poor outskirts of a small town, the damaged cars drove through the rundown residential area. Small houses built of crumbling concrete were widespread in the neighborhood. Trash was littered everywhere, and stray dogs were often seen roaming freely.
The three cars pulled up to one of the rundown homes operating as their safehouse. With the sun setting, they exited their vehicles and unloaded any equipment they could, briefly making sure that they weren't followed. As they did so, Ken grabbed a duffle bag from the trunk of one of the vehicles with his rifle slung on his back.
Upon closing the trunk, he noticed someone watching them nearby. It was a kid. Wearing shorts, a shirt, and sandals, the kid approached as the operators watched in confusion.
"Are you drug traffickers?" the kid asked in Spanish.
As soon as the kid asked, Ken's vision became blurry, and he stuck out his hand. A flood of memories then began to flood his mind out of nowhere. He knew the kid. He was a fourteen-year-old kid named Rodrigo living with his mother in the poverty-stricken neighborhood. Penniless, his mother struggled to support them both; his father had gone missing years prior.
Whatever reality this was, it started accelerating. Ken's life felt like it started playing through his experiences as if it was a television show being fast-forwarded. But for some reason, it stayed on the same topic.
Memories of Rodrigo being recruited as an informant flew past. Friends of Rodrigo had family members who were also members of the Los Zetas cartel. Kids were openly sought out to be recruited, and Rodrigo was one of them. Over time, information Rodrigo stumbled upon or overheard was passed along to the SF operators, leading to many successful raids. Several cartel members were also identified and monitored, allowing authorities to better understand what was going on.
However, Ken felt that as Rodrigo's involvement with Los Zetas grew, the possibility of being found increased, and he suggested Rodrigo and his mother be relocated somewhere safe, but both his superiors and Rodrigo himself refused. The decision was then reinforced when a rumor circulated that a high-ranking cartel member known as Z-42 might be in the area.
Suddenly, Ken's vision started to clear. He was no longer weightless, and he could feel himself standing still. He was standing in front of a worn-down concrete house. It was the house Rodrigo lived in. The road was dirt, and he could see a middle-aged woman outside. She was tending to her garden, where she grew roses and other flowers of different colors.
The woman noticed Ken, and she approached him in a friendly manner.
"Oh, are you here for Rodrigo? He left a few hours ago," she says in Spanish.
"Do you know where he is? I need to speak to him urgently."
"He said he went to a party his friends are hosting in a ranch outside of town."
"All right, thank you. I'll be leaving then."
"Wait. Rodrigo told me how much you've been helping him. I wanted to thank you for keeping him safe. Here, take this. Maybe you have a girlfriend you can give it to."
Rodrigo's mother handed Ken one of the roses she grew in her garden. It was dyed blue since that was her and Rodrigo's favorite color. Though he wasn't dating anyone, he still took the rose to show appreciation. In the end, she never knew who Ken was or what her son was involved with.
Ken left and returned to a waiting car with other operators in it.
"Ken, take a look at this," an operator said as he threw a phone at him.
Ken took a look at the phone, which was a phone taken from a previous raid. It was still receiving messages from other cartel members. It spoke of initiation for new members in which rival hitmen would be executed. The location was a ranch about a dozen miles from town into the desert. Thinking quickly, they realize that this must be where Rodrigo went.
"Initiation tonight? They recruit people all the time, don't they?"
"Yeah, but if Morales is in the area, he might be there."
"We might as well take a look. Kid might get promoted."
"And at fourteen too."
Once again, Ken's vision blurred. He felt weightless again, and time seemed to fast forward.
Memories flew past. They had gone back to the safehouse and contacted their superiors to inform them about the cartel gathering. A sudden feeling of dread built up in Ken. He felt a horrific premonition about the gathering since Rodrigo never told them it was happening, never mind the fact that he was just fourteen.
Their next orders were to find and monitor the meetup. If Z-42 was there, they were to tail him. And so time moved forward. Ken found himself lying on top of a hill, rifle in hand. Next to dead bushes under the moonlight, he monitored the trucks that had gathered in the distance.
This time, his mind wasn't on autopilot. This was the exact scene he's had multiple nightmares about. The night Rodrigo was killed. Suddenly, Ken remembered everything about what happened there. The Los Zetas group had suspected a mole within their ranks and eventually figured out Rodrigo somehow passed along information to authorities. Rodrigo was told that he would execute the rival hitman and, in turn, become one himself. Thus firmly establishing himself as a member of the cartel.
Instead, a cartel member pointed his gun at Rodrigo and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash caused Ken's vision to become white as the gunshot echoed in his ears.
.
.
Sweating, hyperventilating, and shaking, Ken shoots up from the bed he slept on. He looks around the dark room he's in, and a head-splitting headache settles in. He holds onto his head and attempts to calm down. The throbbing pain lasts a full minute before it starts to dissipate, at which point Ken's breathing returns to normal.
With his head up, Ken looks around in familiarity. He's in a decorated room he once found himself in before. This is Countess Maida Thorne's estate. He's back in Adon.
It seems he was dreaming again. But whatever dream he had was way different from anything he's experienced before.
Regardless, his headache is gone, and he can think more clearly. So Ken gets out of bed and stretches. Upon doing so, he feels a breeze and turns to look at the window. It's open.
𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦, he thinks. He doesn't remember leaving it open.
Ken walks over to the windows and takes a look outside. He doesn't see anything except the orange hue of the distant horizon, indicating that the sun is coming up. He takes a deep breath of fresh air and audibly exhales. Perhaps a walk through the city might help ease his nerves. The gunshot still echoes in his mind, constantly feeling a heavy sense of regret and guilt.
.
.
At an undisclosed location inside the city of Scorrest, a hooded figure knocks on a door and waits. The door opens, and someone peeks out.
"What is it?"
"He's alive," a feminine voice says.
"What? How?"
"I know not. The mercenaries are dead. There was an explosion, but that's not all. It appears he has lost his memories. He knows nothing about anything."
"Mmm. Where is he now?"
"Under Countess Maida Thorne's care. Shall I kill him?"
"No. Without memories, he's vulnerable. How about we capture him instead?"
"How do you expect me to do that?" the woman says.
"You'll figure it out," the man says before closing the door on the hooded female.
.
.
When the sun rises, Ken finds himself mindlessly walking through the city streets. For hours now, he's been taking in the fact that this was an entirely different world. While he walks around like a tourist seeing a new country for the first time, there is a warring conflict in his mind. For whatever reason, he relieved some of the worst experiences in his life within his dreams. However much he tries to suppress bad memories from creeping into his mind, there is also something else that wants to remind him of it. He feels like something is forcing him to remember things. Both good and bad.
He remembers everything up until he received near-fatal injuries in a raid gone wrong. From his childhood all the way until he's operating as a Green Beret, he remembers. Then there is a gap between being airlifted to a hospital and waking up in Lady Thorne's estate.
On the very thought of Lady Thorne, she has been surprisingly hospitable despite essentially still being strangers to each other. The fact that she went out of her way to give him a place to stay for a few days is an odd act which Ken hasn't yet figured out. Initially, he suspected Lady Thorne to have an ulterior motive behind her charity, but Ken thinks that may not be the case after spending time in her estate. She has yet to ask anything of him or Arierane, but it's likely inevitable she'll ask for something.
While Ken walks along the streets of the Scorcian capital city, his eyes constantly scan around his surroundings. Not out of security but instead of curiosity. The cityscape is a scene of the historical past fused with fictional themes he never thought he'd see. Yet this undeveloped civilization is not the primitive society that he initially thought it would be.
One of the most prominent things Ken sees out of place is the occasional heavily armed adventurer-type people. Like cosplayers, their attire generally includes the stereotypical outfits found in RPG video games. Dyed hair also seems to be some sort of trend among the adventurers that walk past.
One of the most striking aspects he found himself perplexed by is the strikingly out-of-place weapons. The assortment of weapons is much greater, evident by the frequent appearance of historical bladed armaments originating from all corners of the earth. In a world that largely resembles old European society, it's as if someone is artificially changing how these people are progressing. And something tells him that he might have something to do with it.
In the dense streets Ken navigates through, he spots a small crowd of people looking at something off in the distance. Whatever it is, it seems like something interesting is happening, so Ken decides to check it out.
When Ken gets close enough to see, standing behind a few people watching, he sees that another group of people takes the crowd's attention. No more than a dozen people dressed in near-identical robes follow an older man with a staff. If the crowd's curiosity is anything to go by, they must be important people. They are largely ignoring the eyes of the surrounding public, attempting to mind their own business with little success.
"Hey," Ken says and taps a nearby man's shoulder, "what's the deal with those people?"
"Those there? They are from the Scorrest Academy of Magic Arts."
"So, like, wizards or something?"
"Mages, students of the Kingdom's only magic school. You never heard of 'em?"
"Should I have?"
"You bloody bet you should have. Everyone's heard of 'em."
"Well, now I know."
Magic is still an unknown phenomenon that Ken has no knowledge of. Even with his previous memory, he still wouldn't know a whole lot. At the moment, his current objective is to regain his lost memories or otherwise catch up on what he's missed. While waiting it out or seeking medical help has crossed his mind, watching the group of mages disappear into the crowd gave him a new idea.
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺?
For all Ken knows, magic is capable of doing just about anything. If fiction is anything to go by, magic shouldn't follow any natural laws of physics. If that is remotely true, then there must be something magic can do that he can benefit from. If not, it will at least work to identify its limits.
Having nothing better to do, Ken thinks he might as well inquire about magic and whatever academy the city has. He has no idea what else to do and so why not? Lady Thorne isn't much help, and Arierane is still too suspicious to trust, so Ken has nothing to lose by exploring what the city has to offer. He'll never learn anything if he doesn't try, so he decides to follow the group of mages; maybe they'll help him.
Ken chases after the group of mages whose path is made clear by the stares of the surrounding crowds. It shouldn't be too much of a bother to ask one of the students simple questions about magic, and he thinks nothing of it.
Right before he can open his mouth to call out the mages, Ken feels a hand grab hold of his arm to pull him back. Out of instinct, Ken immediately turns around and firmly grips the hand that gripped his arm. Surprisingly, he notices that the person who stopped him is Arierane, and he eases his grip on her hand.
"Found you, at last. I've been looking for you!"