Prologue

 December 5th, 2214. A few months passed since the black skies cleared up. Siran's book circulated the world like a wildfire. In many countries, simply reading the book or even holding it was seen as a crime. However, many people in many countries fought back against rules and regulations that withheld the book from public access. One such country was America. Before the book was banned, many people were able to get their hands on it and read it as well as the other documents telling the story of the recovery period. Though the book was seen by governments around the world as just a means to create sympathizers for the new Mages Guild, too many voices stood in opposition to the ban of this book. The book seemed ridiculous, but the documents supported the story too well. Much of what Siran had to tell the world was proven true beyond a shadow of a doubt. In addition, the secrets to endo-power electricity came to light. Many stories derived from the recovery period caused a lot of faith to be lost in a lot of governments. Especially when the story behind endo-power came to light. The research that went into the invention of using endo as energy was pulled directly from archives of information regarding something called "zero-point energy." Archives that were hidden behind previously locked and hidden sites all across the United States that became unearthed following the Naris Catastrophe. Learning how much stuff was hidden by governments and released after humanity neared its extinction, it caused a big blow to governments everywhere. People everywhere didn't feel safe anymore confiding in what was once to be a leadership for their nation, now seen as nothing more than a business that only gives what they think is enough for their workers. Now, a newly trained recruit having just been promoted in the FBI SWAT Counter-Terrorism unit, Jade Haskell prepared herself for her first assignment as a special forces CT (counter-terrorism) operator. Jade had dark skin, black hair, green eyes, stood at about six feet tall. She was born in Wisconsin, but taken away from her parents by the department of human services, due to an abusive living environment. She grew up with a foster mother and foster father that she lovingly referred to as mom and dad. She grew up in Michigan, and regardless of her situation she had with her biological parents, she considered herself very fortunate. She grew up in a troubled neighborhood, but around kind people. Though her trust in the government was never strong, she joined the FBI as a means to protect people she cared about, thinking that if she didn't do it, then there wouldn't be anyone for those people back home to count on. Originally having signed up for military service, she was scouted for her excellent performance. Though, lately, she's been worried if she had made the right choices. Especially following the Black Skies Incident. Jade pauses for a quick breath before entering a room she were instructed to report to for her first assignment. After walking in the door, a middle-aged bald man shook her hand. "Pleasure to finally meet you, I'm Commander Harrison Burke and I'll be your commanding officer from now on. Glad to see you made it past training, I've heard good things about you." "Y-yeah, Jade Haskell..." Jade replies nervously. "Jade, walk and talk with me." Harrison says as they walk towards a table on the other side of the room. "Tell me, what do you know about The Six Guns?" "Not... a lot." Jade replies. "Then this first assignment will be a fun one." Harrison replies. "The recent change of Mages has been an obvious concern of ours. Now, I'm not about to go on and on about the many issues we have with all of their members, nor am I going to make the entire Mages Guild your sole responsibility. I want your help focusing on one in particular. You see, I've heard not only did you score high in physical fitness and CQC training, but counterintelligence and information gathering. We have one in particular that's... a little more difficult to gain any footing or leverage on." Harrison then sets aside a folder with many documents inside. The first of which was a full-page portrait of an older Korean woman, short black hair, near emotionless expression, burn scars on the neck and her name titled at the bottom. "This is Holly Jeong, current first seat of the Mages Guild, current military intelligence advisor and former Six Guns member. She's an expert hacker, exemplary magic capabilities, the list really goes on and on. You'll have a hell of a day just reading through her files we've gathered. The previous person building these files passed away, much to our surprise, during the Black Skies Incident. We have had to delegate this matter to someone much more experienced beforehand, but I made the call to have this reassigned to you. Your performance values are excellent and I want to get you into a combination of field and paperwork for this job to get you into the swing of things. You have all of the resources you need here. Current objective is just intelligence gathering by any reasonable means deemed necessary by me or my superiors. Make good use of this assignment. Success in this case may lead to immediate promotion. You know how to reach me if you need anything. Good luck." On this day, all the way out in a rural area in India, a young American man shows up to a suspiciously large office building in the middle of nowhere. This man, Mathias Rudiger, grew up in Washington. His parents passed away when he was very little, then grew up with only his grandmother in the countryside. His grandmother lived alone as her husband had passed not long before Mathias' parents died. She kept all of her photos saved securely on her home computer. Until one day, her computer seemed to suddenly come down with a virus. This computer virus locked her computer, meaning she no longer had any access to her many memories of her husband and daughter. Panicking, she called the number that came up in a message pop-up box for her computer firewall, telling her to call "tech support." This tech support center she called swindled her out of money time and time again. They had control of how the virus operates and kept removing the lock on her computer and activating it again later. Mathias tried reasoning with his grandmother, but she wouldn't listen when he told her she's being scammed. She desperately didn't want it to be true. Not much later, the stress built up and her heart couldn't take it anymore. Mathias' grandmother passed away in her sleep at a local hospital after suffering a heart attack late at night. After many months, Mathias researched and obsessed over computer tracking, looking up IPs and even hacking. Using money left behind by his grandmother, his guilt and anger drove him mad to the point he decided to take measures into his own hands. As Mathias approaches this office, he were dressed up in red and black suit with red wraps around his head and a gold mask in the shape of a skull with husks growing from where the bottom jaw fangs should be. As he got close, security outside of this office panicked and aimed their guns at Mathias. But his magic proved strong as he set fire to the guards and walked past them as they scream and begged for help. Mathias went up stairs to the floor he knew the scammer call center was at, and one by one, used a gun he stole and shot everyone in the back of the head. After he was done, he left a single black card on the desk of the boss who owned this scamming business. On the front side was a golden skull, and the back was the moniker "Skell." As Mathias leaves, he thinks to himself "You can't trust governments to handle these problems. I have to take care of them myself. The lousy, lazy, money hungry bastards wouldn't do a thing no matter how many times I reported it." Mathias pulls out another of his cards from his pocket and inspects it. "Well, we'll see how hard you work when the problem is brought to you. Because this card... this card is going right to governor of Washington for eating up all of our tax money and never doing his job."