You want to know why the world's so fucked up today, you've got to go back a couple decades.

The Soviet Union broke up before most of you little shits were even born, but it's not like the entire slate was going to be wiped clean overnight. Do you know what an Ultranationalist is? It's a goddamn commie without all the red banners. They've got some support in the nineties, and then during Putin's era they disappear. Poof. Gone.

Except they didn't just go away, and you have to be suicidally naive to believe that they did. An ultranationalist is a patriot and an extremist. Dangerous fucking combination. They'll do anything to make Russia look great and they don't give a damn about anyone else.

Now back before that fucker blew my kneecaps off this was something we dealt with all the time. We were raised to believe that the entire population of the second greatest superpower in the world was run by these lunatics. I'm not calling the commies Ultranationalists, but, eh, fuck it, yes I am. Except back then they had power and responsibility and we had a state of uneasy equilibrium.

Fast forward to 2011. The leaders of the free world have no idea what they're dealing with. It's been too long. They've forgot how dangerous the world can get when you have the wrong people in the right place. The last scare was 9/11, and all that led to was a round of jerking off pretending to do something.

So when Zakhaev and his cronies stir up a civil war in Russia, nobody has any fucking idea what to do. We're still fucking around in the Mideast, invading some shithole because the dictator that was on our side got replaced by a dictator that's in Zakhaev's corner. Then he immolates himself, takes a shitload of our troops out with him, and then the whole fucking thing suddenly quiets down.

You know why it quieted down? Because some of our guys, along with the Brits and some help from the Russian Loyalists, offed his ass. The bastard had missiles, too, and he might have even had them in the fucking air. Of course they covered it up- it's all classified, but nobody would believe it anyway. Easier to stick your head in the sand and pretend everything is hunky-dory.

You'd think that now would be a good time to work on improving East-West relationships, but no, of course not. That makes too much sense. Both sides keep blaming each other for every fucking problem in the world and it just gets worse and worse. It's the Cold War all over again. Buildups on both sides. Straw and dry kindling. Just takes some asshole terrorists- you know Allen wasn't really our guy- to toss a match in.

Next thing you know, Russian tanks are rolling out of car carriers onto the continental United States. Their Navy is engaging our Navy, they're pushing into Washington and New York. We're shooting down their planes as fast as we can and they're still bombing the shit out of us. It's the third fucking world war.

Of course, both sides are trying to downplay it like it's a fucking natural occurrence. Vorshevsky's saying that it's the act of a few irrational men and that everything it fine in Russia. Now tell me, if a few irrational men can take control of the entire fucking military of your country, doesn't that mean that your government's collapsed? Meanwhile Perry's letting our men get massacred, keeping his finger off the trigger because we think Mak doesn't have the code and he's not willing to let the nukes fly.

Then one goes off over DC and all hell breaks loose. One of their own boats blows the shit out of their fleet off New York. They invade India for no real reason- funny enough, the Indians thought that Mak had nukes and that's why they didn't glass the country. We push them out but it's not over. A couple of months later a bunch of gas bombs go off in Europe and the Russians move in for the kill. And while all this is happening the Russian President gets shot down and the peace talks are called off. On top of that there's rumours that our own man set the whole thing up. Classic charlie-foxtrot.

Then, suddenly, a couple of days suddenly, everything turns around. The Russians are on the defensive- should have known they couldn't have taken the West on and won. Vorshevsky's back and he wants to end the war. Treaty gets signed, armies go back home, and we're left with a hell of a lot of pieces to pick up.

They threw all the Ultranationalists in jail that they didn't execute. Boris watched his country get fucked up once, he wasn't going to let it happen again. But the guy behind all this- allegedly behind all this- he's nowhere to be found. Disappeared, like a ghost, without a trace, just, poof, gone. Then a few months later, one Vladimir Makarov is found dead in Dubai of all places.

Meanwhile what used to be considered the civilized world is turned to shit. New York, Washington, they're fucking rubble. London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, it's not pretty. We're talking trillions of dollars, tens of millions of lives. But a lot of people, they don't notice, they don't care. It's isolated, it's far away. You see the numbers but you don't really see the impact. So we're hurting but we're not hurting too bad. We bury ourselves in lies and debt.

Two years later, Iran's got the bomb. By this point Israel's feeling the pressure. There's a lot less money flowing into that country, we're spending it on our own problems. The Mideast isn't the big focus anymore and neither is Israel. So when Iran starts waving their dick around, they get really fucking antsy.

What happens next is one of the most controversial events in the history of the world. Nobody knows who really gave the order. Nobody knows why the fuck they did it. But there's an Iranian nuke in the air, and it's headed toward Tel Aviv. Boom. Half a million dead. Entire country's ruined.

The Syrians and the Egyptians are moving in for the kill. The dog's down, it's time to kick it. Only this dog's got teeth. They don't hesitate. They toss a few nukes, the Syrians sends some gas, the Israelis toss a few more nukes, the Iranians toss a few back, the Israelis do it again, next thing you know the entire Middle East is a radioactive fucking wasteland.

Millions of refugees, entire nations wiped off the face of the Earth. Everyone's spouting off bullshit about the human tragedy but that's not what they're thinking about. They're thinking about the massive oil reserve that just became unusable.

The whole economy goes to shit overnight. Runs on banks, runs on gas stations, the stock market crashes, the shelves are empty. The government puts on freezes, they declare a state of emergency, even martial law. The bottom just fell right the fuck out and we're still feeling it today.

What do you do when you fall in a hole? You start crawling back out of it. We move our industry back home because we can't afford to pay the Chinese anymore. We need energy, we need wealth. We're not afraid to get our hands dirty. The environmentalists? Fuck the environmentalists. We're not afraid of oil sand or oil shale anymore, we're building nuclear plants and oil rigs and coal mines as fast as we can.

It's funny, though. Even when we're doing this we're looking for alternatives for oil. Exploring entire fields of tech we've barely scratched before. A technological renaissance, if that's what you want to call it. We're starting to build shit like electric cars and space guns and those gizmos you've got on your right now. America's new schtick is technology. But we need rare earths to build it, and the Chinese have most of it.

And guess who's exploiting all of this. Raul Fucking Menendez. He was a drug dealer before all this, but now he's got exactly what he needs to become a lot more. Cordis Die? Odysseus? That's Menendez, sure as shit. Appealing to the 99% is easy when the economy just tanked and the rich are still rich. He's crowdsourcing some protests, using social media and that shit, all around the world, whipping up a real shitstorm. Pretty sure the Federation is funding him, too. Power? Money? He's got both.

So we're heading into the next decade, and the world looks a lot different. There's four major power blocs in play now, and it's another Cold War, except the lines are a lot blurrier.

We've got the Strategic Defence Coalition. The SDC, or the Yellows. That's the East, the old Soviet Union, plus India and China. Real powerhouse. The two most valuable resources in the world are oil and rare earths, and they've got plenty of both.

Then there's the Federation- if you think I'm going to call them the Federation of the Americas with a straight face then you're fucking delusional. That's most of Central and South America- everyone except French Guiana basically, Mexico turned in '23. They've got oil, not as much as the SDC but quite a bit. These guys are the up and comers.

There's us. The North American Alliance. Ourselves, Canada and a couple of our closest allies in Asia- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. A direct response to the Federation. Like I said, we do technology. We're ahead in electronics, ahead in space, ahead in nuclear, ahead in everything. We just don't have the same kind of raw resources.

The last big bloc is the European Union. Most of Europe west of the Ukraine, plus Australia, New Zealand, and a few other places with close ties to Europe. Once upon a time a lot of people thought they'd be the next superpower. Now I'm not saying they're weak or useless, but they're pretty much just plodding along. They don't have the same resources or influence as the other superpowers.

Everyone's in a sort of uneasy peace. Nobody likes anybody, but there's a balance of power. Everybody's content- not happy, but content. Wealth is still flowing. Information is still flowing. People are still living. But all it takes is for some asshole to kick over the stack of bricks.

So that brings us to 2025, the present day. We've got Cordis Die stirring up shit, an international terrorist on the loose, and a bunch of South Americans waving their dicks around.

"Any questions?" the man in the wheelchair asked, a note of sarcasm in his voice. He was old, with a wrinkled face and the little hair he had left completely white.

Observing him was a man and a woman. The man was tall and heavily built, with a square face and strong jaw. He sported short hair and a prominent moustache, both dirty charcoal. He wore tactical gear with no sleeves, exposing heavily tattooed arms. In his arms was an M8 rifle. His insignia declared that he was a member of J-SOC and his nametag read Harper.

The woman was dressed similarly, though her arms were not exposed and her gloves covered her fingers. She was slightly taller than the man and slimmer, though well built for a woman. Brown hair pulled back into a ponytail framed her small hazel eyes. She bore the same unit insignia and her nametag read Mason.

"Fucking waste of time. Guy's a vegetable," Harper spat.

The old man stared at him. "I'm getting there, dipshit. Can't you kids wait a fuckin' minute?"

"Let him work up to it," Mason said softly.

"I suppose you want to know if I had a visitor," the old man muttered. "Looking for Menendez, aren't you?"

"Sergeant Woods!" Harper interrupted loudly, irritated. "Raul Menendez is the leader of Cordis Die, and the most dangerous terrorist since Osama Bin Laden."

"I know who he is, dipshit," Woods said to the younger man, before turning to the woman. "All he said was 'Mi Hermana'."

"It's Spanish for sister," Mason translated. Blinking, she whispered, "You suffer with me."

The old man paused, appearing lost in thought. Finally, he said quietly, "You better get your shit together. He's gonna attack."

"If you have information about a threat to national security, you've gotta tell us," Harper insisted.

"Alright." Woods motioned to the small device attached to his ear. "Turn the camera on."

He turned to the woman. "Your old man, he was doing okay in Alaska... then fucking Hudson showed up..."

XCVG Systems Presents

Call of Duty: Black Ghosts Warfare

Sam Worthington

James C. Burns

Kamar de los Reyes

Jennifer Hale

Michael Rooker

Omid Abtahi

Brandon Routh

Stephen Lang

Erin Cahill

Kevin Gage

Tony Todd

Celestin Cornielle

The title describes the story exactly. It's Black Ops, Modern Warfare, and Ghosts all merged into one timeline. The story is mostly Black Ops 2, with Modern Warfare in the past, but Ghosts will be worked in more toward the end of this story. And yes, I gender-swapped Mason, because I feel not having a female protagonist was a huge missed opportunity. There are other changes, but I'm not going to reveal them yet.