Anyone who knew the history of Earth would be surprised to see a fleet of dozens of longboats heading toward the Yucatan Peninsula in the year 92 AD. The leader of this fleet was Trevor, John’s son.

Months ago, he heard about his brother Quincy getting kidnapped and that his father was going to retrieve him. Trevor had absolute faith that his father would succeed since his father succeeded in everything, he set his mind to, but a few weeks ago, he was at the trading port near the Village on A Hill when a merchant made his way to Trevor and said, “I am sorry for your loss.”

Trevor asked, “Loss? What are you talking about?”

The merchant was surprised and said, “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Your brother Quincy was killed by the people who captured him. He was probably dead before your father left to rescue him.”

Trevor was shocked; he cried out, “NO, no, no. Not my brother.” Tears began to roll down his face. Trevor, in many respects, was not a good man, but he loved his brothers. When he regained his composure, he said, “Quincy was the kindest out of us. Sure, we fought like boys do, but all my brother wanted to do was play the guitar and sing with his girlfriend. Why would someone kill him?”

The merchant remained quiet because it was obvious that Trevor wasn’t looking for an answer to his question. He was just grieving.

After a few tears and mumblings about his brother, Trevor asked, “What did Dad do when he found my brother?”

“Your father didn’t find your brother. Quincy’s body was sacrificed and long gone by the time your father reached them. “

Trevor snarled, “Did my father even make them pay!?”

“Yes. Your father had nearly a thousand buffalo riders with him. When he found out about the death of Quincy, he told them to kill all the men they found. One of the chiefs asked to take slaves, and your father allowed it with the caveat that the slaves had to be castrated first.”

Trever felt relief. Most of the men were dead, and those who were not had their lines ended, “So, the tribe that killed my brother is gone?”

The merchant hesitated before saying, “No.”

“WHAT! You said that Dad brought a thousand buffalo riders. How could a tribe survive that? Did Dad go soft again?”

“No. The village was huge. It had buildings as tall as trees, and many buildings, both great and small, were made out of stone. The great village held tens of thousands of people. Your father only gave the buffalo riders one day to get their revenge. They killed thousands of men and burned much of the city, but there are countless more left.”

“If Dad can't do the job right, I will.”

Then as Trevor turned to leave, the merchant said, “I have something for you.”

“I don’t have time for you. I need to prepare for war.”

“This will only take a moment.” Then the merchant pulled out gold, jade, and obsidian jewelry and said, “This is my gift for you. It came off the bodies of the people who killed your brother.”

Trevor looked at the jewelry, and despite his grief, he couldn’t help but see the marvelous craftsmanship and detail. It was far more intricate than anything anyone made in the Trade Alliance, including his father. It was a true piece of art. Trevor said, “Thank you.” Then he turned to leave and then turned back and asked, “How many people had this jewelry?”

“Most people had jewelry like it. It was pretty common.”

“Thank you. This will make my job easier.”

And so Trevor called for the nobility of Cuba, the Landowners, and the Vast Landowners. His message read, “To all Landowners, my brother Quincy was murdered, and I must get revenge. People across the sea to the southwest killed him, so bring as many Sea Wardens as you can fit on your boats and come meet me at the Village on The Hill. If you have room on your boats, take the tribal warriors who have not yet done the training to become Sea Wardens, there will be plenty of battle and spoil for them. We will go and avenge my brother with their blood, and our Sea Wardens will take their wealth and women.”

The Landowners came with all the men they could bring. Nearly six hundred trained Sea Wardens, and another fifteen hundred untrained warriors who came with their tribal stone-tipped spears, and poor-quality bows. Each boat was crammed with twenty-five to thirty men. Eighty-one ships in total showed up to bring war to the men that killed Quincy.

Nearly all the men that made up this fleet hated Trevor and the Landowners, but they looked around and saw how many people they commanded, and any thought of rebellion left their minds. In this instance, perceived power was actual power.

Once all Landowners arrived, they went west, and as they passed the tip of the island of Cuba, they began going southwest.

After heading southwest for a day, they reached the coast far sooner than they thought they would, and the men began looking for huts or buildings made with stone. They were hundreds of miles off course, but Trevor did not know or care. He was going to make someone pay for his brother's death.

After a couple of days of going down the coast, they caught sight of fishermen in canoes out on the water. The fishermen were shocked to see giant canoes, and so they tried to row back to shore, but the longboats were much faster. They quickly caught up and then began passing the canoes.

The men on the longboats were not stupid. It was a simple thing to see what direction the men in canoes were going and check to see if they could see some stone buildings that way.

After a minute, someone began yelling out, “STONE BUILDINGS! STONE BUILDINGS!”

Trevor called back, “KILL THE FISHERMEN!”

And so, all over the fleet of ships, men began taking out bows and taking out the fishermen in their canoes. They didn’t stand a chance. Every fisherman was hit with at least five arrows, and several were hit with more than fifteen.

Their easy deaths only made Trevor’s men grow excited for battle.

As the longboats grew closer to the stone buildings, which were a lot smaller than trees, Trevor noted, the villagers began shouting something in a strange language, some kind of warning or call to battle. Trevor didn’t care; as long as his Landowners didn’t die, they could lose half the force and be no worse off.

When the boats hit the beaches, the tribal warriors jumped out with their spears and immediately began running forward with all the speed they could muster. They had much to prove. The Landowners had whispered in their ears that if they did well, they could become Sea Wardens. None of them wanted to go back to the dreary work the Landowners forced on them, so they ran hard to battle.

The Sea Wardens followed behind, at a light jog, pulling out their iron knives and tomahawks.

Finally, the Landowners took up the rear carrying their fast fire bows, ready to deal with any long-range threat.

The tribal warriors ran into the largest village they had ever heard of and began dashing in every direction. They were told that if they found a beautiful woman, they could keep her. If they found a strong man, they could castrate him and keep him as their slave. They would no longer be at the bottom of the food chain. The slaves they took today would be. Anything that they found was theirs for the taking.

But this village had many Jaguar warriors. These were fierce men who went into the jungles and tracked and killed jaguars. They had earned their pelts and their place as warriors in their nation. They were not going to let their homes go without a fight.

The Jaguar warriors were disciplined men who came together in squads when they heard the shouts of alarm. They stood together in a familiar and practiced formation as the tribal warriors charged at them with spears. As they came, the Jaguar warriors began fighting Trevor’s tribal warriors with clubs.

The tribal warriors were excited to go into battle after the easy victory over the fishermen. They grew more excited when they realized how badly they outnumbered the warriors’ wearing pelts with strange patterns. They ran forward spears out and plunged them into the Jaguar warriors, only for the cloth armor to stop the stone-tipped spears, like a book would stop a knife. Then the Jaguar warriors began clubbing the heads of the tribal warriors, whose brains splattered on the men behind them.

The tribal warriors Trever brought were undisciplined. Some of them ignored what was going on around them and tried to pierce the Jaguar warriors with their spears, and a few succeeded as the cloth armor did not cover everything. Others tried to stop before reaching the range of the club, but they were pushed forward by the other men Trevor brough, and into the smiling Jaguar warriors' range. They died pushing back in a panic. Others managed to turn and run, only to be met with tomahawks and bowie knives. The Sea Wardens in the rear had no use for warriors who ran at the first sign of trouble.

When the Sea Wardens saw men retreating, and the attack stalling, they stepped into battle. The Sea Wardens pushed aside the amateur tribal warriors still pushing forward trying to get to the action. As they grew close to the fighting they tribal warriors stopped pushing forward and some turned to run and so the Sea Wardens struck them down for the sin of turning and running from battle. Cowards deserved to die.

When they Sea Wardens finally met the Jaguar warriors, the Jaguar warriors instantly saw the Sea wardens were different than the tribal warriors. They were far more disciplined, and their weapons were not stone-tipped. They were razor-sharp iron. In one hand a tomahawk, and in the other a bowie knife. For the first time, the Mayan jaguar warriors hesitated as they had never seen or heard of weapons like these, but the hesitation only lasted a split second before training kicked in.

The Jaguar warriors swung their clubs like they had been trained. They swung their club just like in all the battles they had won before this day, but as the Jaguar warrior swung their club, the Sea Wardens were able to block with one weapon and strike with the other. Not every blow made it through their cloth armor, but the Sea Wardens were trained to fight with two weapons, and so flowed from one attack to the next. Even if it took several slices, and jabs with a knife, alongside strikes with the tomahawk, the Jaguar warriors' armor was not designed to deal with such a warrior. The Jaguar warriors were endlessly drilled in fighting men with bows, arrows, and clubs, not these new state-of-the-art weapons. Each movement, attack, and adjustment they made was useless against this new foe, who had tremendously better weapons and had the training to fight men wielding clubs. And so, the Sea Wardens, with few losses, cut through the Jaguar warriors.

As the tide of battle started turning to favor Trevor's men, the Mayans began firing arrows into them, but this had little effect on the battle as the Landowners immediately began shooting into every archer they saw. Their compound bows, with their quickfire magazines, were so significantly better than the local hunter's bows that the Mayans thought the landowners had weapons of the gods.

By comparison the local hunters had bows that were perhaps sixty-pound draw weights, but most of the landowner's compound bows had a draw weight of nearly a hundred pounds, but with the pulley system, it meant their arrows were launched with two hundred pounds of force. This meant that they had a much better range. Plus, compound bows allow an archer to hold the string at full draw with little effort, unlike the Mayan’s bows, which gave Trevor’s men far better accuracy. That isn’t even mentioning the rate of fire.

And so, within half an hour, all resistance in the village was defeated. Their defenders were either dead, captured, or fleeing.

Nearly four hundred of Trevor’s tribal warriors and thirty of the Sea Wardens were killed. The dead Mayan warriors were never counted. The weapons and apparel of the dead on both sides were looted, and their bodies were left to rot as the survivors went looking for loot. In a few hours, Trevor’s people went through every building and gathered everything that caught their eye. When they finally left the large village, most of the men were covered in jewelry made with gold, jade, and obsidian. They were wealthy and had what they needed to trade with the merchants without having to work one of the thankless jobs that the Landowners forced on them.

As they left, they gathered their belongings and their captives. Hundreds of women were captured, alongside dozens of men. Each man was castrated before they left. Those that died on the journey were cast out of the boat. Those that lived were expected to work and, in time, as they learned the language, tell Trevor where he could find more of their people so he could avenge his brother and make his people rich.

Somewhere a couple of millennia from this attack a Chrono researcher will acknowledge a divergence in the timeline. Not a gigantic one, but a noticeable one. Because of this raid, the Mayan city of Dzibilchaltun will never exist. It died as a medium-sized town the day Trevor raided it, thinking they were the people who killed his brother.