Interlude – The Silent Storms (1991–2001)
The desert war had ended quickly, too quickly. The world called it a triumph, a victory that proved technology could end conflict in weeks instead of years. Politicians spoke of a "peace dividend." Generals promised future wars would be swift, bloodless, efficient.
But Ivar knew storms never ended. They only shifted.
The 1990s were proof of it. A decade that claimed peace, but bled in shadows.
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Somalia, 1992–1993
Mogadishu was a city on fire without bombs. Civil war had gutted it, famine hollowed its people, and militias carved it into pieces.
Ivar walked through its dust-choked streets, children clutching his hands, eyes sunken from hunger. He carried sacks of food when aid convoys were hijacked, his blades flashing against warlords' men who treated rice as treasure and water as ransom.
He saw the famine firsthand — bodies too light to lift, mothers weeping over infants who would never grow. He fought in alleys when gangs fired into crowds scrambling for bread, his swords cutting faster than their rifles.
And in 1993, when American Rangers came to capture a warlord's lieutenants, Ivar was there. He heard the helicopters overhead, saw the Black Hawks fall.
The city exploded with gunfire. Streets filled with fighters armed with RPGs, civilians caught in the crossfire. Ivar fought through it, carrying wounded Rangers, shielding Somali children alike, cutting through ambushes when mobs surged.
He dragged men to the stadium where soldiers held the perimeter, blood streaking his arms, his eyes hard as steel.
When the battle ended, the world called it a disaster. Ivar only whispered thanks for survival. Because in Mogadishu, survival was the only victory possible.
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Rwanda, 1994
If Somalia was famine, Rwanda was fire.
The genocide began in April. Machetes, clubs, bullets — neighbors turning on neighbors, friends killing friends, the air itself soaked with screams.
Ivar arrived as the killing began. He walked through villages where corpses lay in ditches, rivers ran red, churches filled with the dead who had sought refuge and found betrayal.
He fought when he could, blades flashing against mobs armed with machetes. He shielded children, carried them across borders, ferried survivors through forests where death hunted them. But even he could not stop it.
Eight hundred thousand dead in a hundred days.
Ivar stood in silence afterward, sea-green eyes reflecting fields of bones. He had seen massacres before — Carthage, Jerusalem, Dresden. But Rwanda was different. It was not armies. It was neighbors. Humanity devouring itself with unholy intimacy.
He bowed his head. Not for victory. Not for survival. But for sorrow.
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The Balkans, 1990s
Europe claimed it had buried war after 1945. The Balkans proved it had not.
In Bosnia, in Kosovo, Ivar walked among ruins where old grievances burned like dry wood. Ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, villages shelled into ash.
He fought in Sarajevo, where snipers turned daily life into death games. He carried water across streets under fire, dragged wounded civilians into basements, hunted snipers in the hills with blades that cut faster than their triggers.
He was in Srebrenica when the town fell. He fought through the night, his swords cutting Serb soldiers who rounded civilians into fields. He carried boys on his shoulders, shielded mothers, but he could not stop the massacre. Thousands died in days.
The gods were silent. They always were.
And yet, Ivar whispered thanks as he walked away from another graveyard. Because even in hell, he still breathed. And breath was worship enough.
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Refugee Camps
The 1990s were filled with camps. In Africa, in Europe, in Asia — tents sprawling across fields, barbed wire marking the edge of survival.
Ivar walked through them all. He carried sacks of rice, hauled buckets of water, fought off bandits who preyed on the desperate. He sat with children at night, telling stories of storms and survival, their wide eyes reflecting firelight.
He never told them who he was. Only that storms always pass, and so would theirs.
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Shadows of Terror – Late 1990s
As the century closed, another storm stirred. It did not wear uniforms. It did not march in columns. It moved in shadows, in cells, in whispers carried across deserts and mountains.
Terrorism was not new to Ivar. He had seen zealots strike in Rome, assassins carve their names in Crusades, anarchists shake empires with bombs. But this was different.
This was global.
He first heard the name al-Qaeda whispered in Sudan, in Yemen, in Afghanistan. He followed its echo through camps in the desert, saw men train with rifles and rockets, saw sermons that promised glory in death.
He was in Africa when embassies exploded in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, the blasts shattering buildings, killing hundreds. He pulled survivors from rubble, blades flashing against opportunists who looted while others bled.
And in 2000, he was in Aden when the USS Cole was bombed, sailors torn apart by fire as their ship buckled. He carried them to safety, sea-colored eyes reflecting the flames.
The storm was no longer forming. It was here.
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The Eve of a New Century
By the year 2000, the world believed it had triumphed. The Cold War was over. The internet was rising. Globalization tied nations together.
But Ivar had seen too much to believe in endings.
He stood in New York City in the summer of 2001, wandering among crowds, his swords hidden beneath the modern world's indifference. He looked up at the towers that scraped the sky, steel and glass gleaming in sunlight.
To most, they were symbols of progress. To Ivar, they were targets waiting for thunder.
He bowed his head, whispered thanks, and walked on.
Because storms never die. They only wait.
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Do you want me to move straight into Chapter 22 – The War on Terror (Afghanistan 2001–2002, post-9/11), or should I give one more short prologue-style chapter of 9/11 itself, showing where Ivar was on that day and how he reacted before stepping into the war?