I left the Cortex arena and headed for the Garage to park my AC.  As I 
shut Kong down I started to think about some of the things that just 
happened.  I was totally comfortable and relaxed in there even though I was 
doing things that no normal person should be able to do.  I opened the hatch 
inside the cockpit to the ACs computer core and grabbed the disk that the 
cameras recorded onto.  I took the disk right to my room and popped it into 
my computer.  

    I pressed play and saw a split screen image, on one side was a shot of 
the 50 ACs walking into the arena and on the other was a shot of me standing 
inside the cockpit with the control arms strapped to me.  I saw my arm lift 
and then a large green bolt of plasma fly over the MTs heads.  As soon as the 
MTs began to attack I noticed something strange happen to my face on 
recording.  The gray part of my eyes started to slowly change color to match 
the rest of my eyes.  Pretty soon they were a forest green color and starting 
to glow.  “Oh my God... What am I?”  I watched the screen and pretty soon I 
couldn’t keep up with the speed of the movements I was making.  I remembered 
the battle going so slow but here, right in front of me, is a recording of 
that battle that looks like it is in fast forward.  I just watched as my eyes 
would glow brighter when I dodged a shot that was coming in from behind that 
I shouldn’t have even known was coming.  I could see a look on my face that 
scared me, it was twisted and contorted like as if I was in pain but I don’t 
remember feeling any.  The look was changing to anger now but again, I don’t 
remember being angry at all.

    The recording was only a minute long but I watched it over and over in 
slow motion so I could tell what was going on.  I watched myself destroying 
50 MTs in less than a minute, over and over again for hours.  I checked the 
clock and it read 5:04.  I took the disk out of my computer and put it on the 
desk.  I was about to just go to bed and think about what I just did when my 
phone rang.  I picked it up and held it to my ear.  “You understand now why 
you are the only one who can do this Kur?  I know you recorded that battle 
and I know you have been watching it.  Frankly I had no idea you were capable 
of so much, but it’s all for the better.  I am going to have a few of my men 
take a look at your AC Kur.  Don’t worry about any secret parts because I 
know you have them, we will keep them secret.  Just get some sleep and try to 
relax.”  The CEO of Global Cortex hung up the phone and I headed for my bed.  
I couldn’t sleep though, I was too deep in my own thoughts to sleep.

    I had no idea what time it was or even what day.  I had been laying on my 
bed thinking about what I might be when Trish walked into my room.  “Kur?  
Are you ok?  What’s going on?”  I sat up and pointed to my computer.  “Watch 
what’s on the disk.”  I got up and walked into the bathroom as Trish loaded 
the disk into my computer.  I looked into the mirror and stared into my own 
eyes until I heard Trish gasp.  I closed my eyes and walked back into the livi
ng room.  Trish had her hand over her mouth while she watched the recording.  
“Kur... What... What is happening to you?”  “I don’t know hon.  I don’t 
know.”  I was kind of in a dream state at this point.  I felt very tired and 
very hungry.  “What day is it Trish?”  “It’s Friday baby, why?”  Friday?  
that means I have been laying on that bed for four days.  “Never mind, I got 
to take a shower.”  I started to walk back into the bathroom but never made 
it.  

    I woke up in a hospital bed with Trish standing over me.  “What am I 
doing here?”  “You passed out Kur.  You’ve been out for almost 3 days now.  
The doctors said that it looked like you hadn’t slept in two weeks.  I think 
that last battle you had took a lot out of you.”  “Did you tell them about 
the disk?”  “No honey, I decided that if you want them to know, you should 
tell them.”  “Good, good.  I have to get out of here, I have to fin out what 
is going on with me.”  “Oh no, you stay right where you are mister.  I have a 
mission to do in an hour but I’ll be back soon.  You just stay here and 
relax.  Try not to think about... well, you know.  Just stay here and let the 
doctors take care of you.  Besides, the nurses here are kinda hot!”  She 
started laughing at her own joke and gave me a kiss on the forehead and 
walked out the door.

    I just laid in the hospital bed and looked at the IVs leading into my 
arms.  There seemed to be some saline water in one of them, some kind of 
medication in another, and some weird looking brown liquid that I guessed was 
my ‘food’.  I found the controller to the TV that hung from the wall and 
turned it on.  I spent about two hours watching TV when the phone next to my 
bed rang.  I answered it and a deep males voice was on the other end.  “You 
should check up on your girlfriend Kur.  Listen to this.”  I heard a button 
being pressed and then I heard Trish’s voice.  She sounded winded and in 
pain.  “What the hell is going on here?  Who are you?  Get away from me!”  I 
heard some explosions and a gun being fired and then static.  “She is still 
alive Kur.  If you want to save her maybe you should get to the southern 
desert, area 519.  If you hurry she might still be alive when you get here.”  
There was something in the mans voice that made me feel like he would kill 
her if I didn’t show.  The call could be a fake, but I couldn’t take the 
chance.  

    I dropped the phone and ran out of the hospital room and into the hall.  
I was relieved to see that I was in the Cortex hospital so my AC couldn’t be 
too far away.  I ran down the hall into the waiting room and out the door.  I 
found myself standing in the central courtyard of Global Cortex looking for 
the garage building.  I found it a couple of hundred yards to the west and 
ran full speed to it.  I jumped into my AC and started it up.  “Systems 
activated, I am functioning within normal parameters.”  Wait just a second.  
“Kong, did you just say, I?”  “Yes Kur, I did.”  Ok this was new but I didn’t 
have time to figure it out, I had to get to Trish before something happens to 
her.

    I hit my boosters before I was even out of the garage and flew out the 
huge garage doors and down the street.  I was running and boosting at the 
same time, trying to get moving as fast as I could.  It seemed to take 
forever but I made it out of the city and headed south towards the desert.  
It took me almost an hour to get to the area where Trish was supposed to be 
but I didn’t see her anywhere.  I continued on but I could feel my anger 
coming out.  I was angry at the guys who attacked Trish, I was angry at the 
guy who called me, I was angry at myself for taking so long to get out here, 
and I was even angry at Trish for getting into such big trouble.  Before I 
knew it I was over boosting towards a blip on my radar.

    I cut my over boost when I saw a white heavyweight AC standing in the 
distance.  It looked familiar to me but I put that thought in the back of my 
mind and let my building rage take over.  I started running at the lone AC 
and fired a powerful green bolt of plasma from my KARASAWA.  The AC hit it’s 
over boost and dodged to the right as I fired another shot.  The Raven was on 
top of his game and now dodged to the left as I hit my over boost and rushed 
for him at around 800 mph. while firing a stream of bullets from my chain 
gun.  Once again this Raven showed his skill by hitting his over boost and 
charged right past me at incredible speed.  I was facing away from him but I 
felt the two bazooka shells he fired heading for my back.  I cut my over 
boost and jumped into the air letting the two shells fly under my feet.  I 
turned in the air only to see the enemy over boosting towards me again while 
firing a TITAN missile and four support missiles from it’s extensions.  I let 
my anti-missile cannon take out two of the support missiles as I dodge the 
TITAN and the other two support missiles.

    The frustration of not being able to catch this guy was only increasing 
my rage.  I wanted to kill this man, I wanted to squeeze the life out of him 
with my bare hands and rip his body open.  I had never been so full of 
absolute anger in my life.  It was an empowering feeling, I felt like I was 
invincible, and at the same time a part of me was terrified at what I might 
do if I lost control like this again.  But once again I pushed all thoughts 
of reason to the back of my mind and continued the fight.

    As I was dodging the missiles, the white AC over boosted around me so I 
turned as fast as I could only to see him turning to face me also.  I hit my 
over boost and rocketed towards the AC with my STARLIGHT ready to swing.  I 
could see the AC raise his flame-thrower but I didn’t care.  I’d be out of 
there before the flames had any time to heat me up.  I landed right in front 
of him and swung my blade in a wide green arch but the AC boosted backwards 
just missing my swing.  He was still at pretty close range and boosting 
backwards when he fired another round of the TITAN and support missiles.  I 
wasted no time and hit my over boost again to close in the distance between 
our ACs.  I used my chain gun to shoot down the TITAN missile and just dodged 
quickly to the right to avoid the support missiles but took one to the core 
anyway.  It did very minimal damage to my thick armor and I needed the extra 
time I saved to catch up to my prey.  If I was in a calmer state of mind I 
might have noticed that that white heavyweight AC was moving a lot faster 
than it should be.  But like I said, I simply didn’t care to notice at the 
time.

    The AC was still boosting backwards away from me when I noticed a small 
hatch on the shoulder of each of his arms open to reveal the tips of four 
napalm rockets.  The rockets quickly fired right for me at close range.  I 
had too much forward momentum to break to the side so I planted my feet and 
cut my OB, falling forward flat on my ACs face.  The rockets flew over my AC 
as I used my forward momentum to somersault back onto my feet.  Before I 
could lift my KARASAWA to fire another shot, the AC over boosted over my head 
and stopped behind me over a kilometer away.  I knew he had no weapons that 
could fire at that range so I just turned around and faced him, waiting for 
his next move.  I couldn’t think of anything else but how much this guy was 
pissing me off.  He had the nerve to face me like this, like this is some 
kind of duel or something!  Something inside told me that I was making a 
mistake, that I am not like this, that I don’t have to kill this man to make 
myself feel better.  But I didn’t listen, I pushed that voice away just like 
the others and started to run at the white AC that was walking towards me.

    The AC saw me coming and lowered his chain gun over his shoulder and 
started to boost towards me.  Soon he started to fire the chain gun and hit 
his over boost sending a huge flame of white light out the back of his AC.  
He began strafing to the right while he fired.  I waited for the bullets to 
get close to me and I jumped high into the air doing a front flip over the 
incoming ammunition.  As soon as my AC was upright in the air, I hit my over 
boost and took off to the left to parallel his movements.  I started to fire 
from both my KARASAWA and my chain gun as he fired four more napalm rockets 
and some bazooka shells.  I cut my over boost and boosted back to the right 
to let the enemy fire pass harmlessly in front of me.  At the same time the 
enemy AC somehow doubled his over boost speed, leaving all of my shots to 
fall far behind him.  He slowed down then stopped his over boost so while he 
was standing still I fired 12 mid sized missiles at him, six verticals from 
my launcher and six horizontals from my extensions.  The AC hit his over 
boost once again but this time something was different, he must have hit his 
limiter release because the white flame that shot from his back was enormous. 
 The Ac blasted towards me and the missiles dropping it’s TITAN missile 
launcher and extensions, then broke to the right to dodge most of my missiles 
but he was moving forward so fast that he couldn’t break the momentum to much 
so four of the missiles hit him.  He put his arms out to the side and down a 
little to keep his balance as the power of his over boost and my exploding 
missiles lifted him off the ground slightly.  The air around the AC was 
rising in waves from the heat of his over boost flame like you would see the 
air rising from the hot desert floor.  The whole thing looked like a huge 
white angle of death coming to take my life.  And in my rage, I saw that as a 
reason to kill, no matter what.

    I had to kill him, even if it meant my death in the process.  I hit my 
over boost and limiter release at the same time and watched as my speedometer 
climbed by the hundreds of mile per hour.  Everything was moving in slow 
motion again and I saw the white AC heading for me at full speed, probably as 
fast or faster than I was moving.  I looked back at my speedometer again and 
found that it read 1854 mph.  It was supposed to stop at 999 but for some 
reason it was reading higher now.  I pulled my left arm up and got ready to 
activate my blade but I stopped, I wanted to kill this man with my bare 
hands. I put my arm back down and adjusted my course for a head on collision.

    The force of the collision was amazing.  I went from 1890 mph. to zero in 
just a fraction of a second.  I could feel my skin being pulled from my face 
and it felt like my eyes were trying to leave their sockets.  I got a 
tremendous headache and my hands immediately turned purple and started to 
bleed as all of the blood in my body rushed forward.  The whole thing took 
only a millisecond but I could feel the pain and everything that was 
happening for what seemed like hours.  Finally the collision was done but to 
my amazement the enemy AC was still standing as was mine.  All of our weapons 
were thrown off or destroyed in the collision so I decided to finish this 
battle with hand to hand combat.  The other Raven must have had the same idea 
because he threw a lightning quick punch at me but I was on top of it.  I 
leaned back far enough to be out of reach of his punch and at the same time I 
lifted my right foot up to do a strait kick to his core.  The white AC would 
have none of that though and hit his over boost, side stepping my kick and 
ramming his shoulder hard into my core, sending my AC further over backwards. 
 I reached out and grabbed the AC by the shoulders while lifting my left leg 
into the waist area of my enemy and fell onto my back while kicking out with 
my planted foot, sending him flying over my head.

    I thought I had him now but on the way over he grabbed my core and pulled 
me along with him trying to do the same move to me.  I was ready though and 
hit my boosters stopping our rolling momentum so that I was on top of his AC. 
 I reached down and grabbed his ACs head in my right hand , pulling him up to 
his feet and crushing his head at the same time.  My left arm was still 
working but it wasn’t very strong so I couldn’t stop him from grabbing my ACs 
head in his hand to.  We were both crushing each others head and my rage was 
just boiling over.  I turned on my com link on and yelled at him as loud as I 
could.  “I’ll kill you, you fucking bastard!  What have you done with Tris
h?!”  I was enraged at the thought that this guy might have killed Trish, I 
could see a light green glow on the walls of my cockpit and I realized it 
must be my eyes again.  “Hey!  I know you, right?”  What was that?  That 
voice sounded familiar.  The shock of a familiar voice brought me down from 
my rage a little, just enough to reason with myself.  “Archangel... is that 
you?”  I recognized his AC now that I was thinking strait and let go of his 
head.  “Shit, what the hell was that all about Kur?”  “What the hell are you 
doing here?  Where’s Trish?”

    I could see the cockpit on Angel Impact opening up and Archangel climbing 
out.  I opened my hatch and climbed out also.  We met on the desert ground, 
witch wasn’t too hot because it was winter time.  I couldn’t see what he was 
wearing because he had a long trench coat on over his clothes.  But I could 
see he had on some gray gloves and boots and the trench coat didn’t hide how 
skinny he was either.  He looked like he’d disappear if he turned sideways.  
We both looked up at our ACs and saw that they were horribly damaged.  If it 
wasn’t for my extra thick armor I am sure my AC would be scrap by now, and 
that means that Angel Impact has some kind of special armor as well.  “Damn 
Angel, you got better.”  “I guess, how did you know to match my moves like 
that?”  “I am not really sure, all I know for now is that my girlfriend is 
missing and I have to find her.”  Archangel looked genuinely concerned and 
shook his head.  “When did you last see her?  Any suspects?”  “Nothing, I got 
a call saying that she needed help on a mission in this area because she was 
being overwhelmed.  Then when I got here, all I saw was you, and I kinda lost 
it.  How did you end up here?”  His lips twisted into an angry looking smile 
and he said “I was supposed to take out a ‘little’ AC.”  “I haven’t seen any 
little ACs around here man... Wait you don’t mean me do you?”  “That biatch!  
Yeah you...”  “Now who would want me taken out?  Wait, don’t even answer, I 
already know, that bitch Stephanie!  I swear to God I’ll kill her if she 
hurts Trish!”  “So, this Trish?  Why hurt her?  Just to get to you?”  “Yeah, 
Stephanie knows I love her.  How did you end up working for her anyway?”  
“Met her like a month earlier, said she had a little mission for me, an 
impossible one nearly!  That is the last time I take a mission just for the 
reward.”  “Haha, well I can tell she helped out your AC a little too.  You 
have to watch that slut, she will get you to do things.”  Archangel shook his 
head and waved his hands as if you wave something off,  “Oh no man I’m done 
working for her.”  “Good, well it was nice catching up with you but I got to 
get out of here and find Trish.”  

    We each climbed into our ACs and collected the weapons that were dropped 
in the collision.  My KARASAWA was nearly destroyed but repairable.  The 
STARLIGHT plasma blade was in pretty good shape but didn’t work and my 
missile launcher and chain gun were ok, just thrown off to the side.  “Kong, 
damage report.”  “My external armor is 95% damaged... There are no 
functioning weapons equipped at this time... and the radiator is functioning 
at 48% of normal capacity... All other systems are functioning normally.”  
Well at least Kong still worked and I could get home.  I had to get back to 
the garage and get Kong back into working order so I could go a crush 
Stephanie’s corporation and hopefully her as well.

    I ran back to the Global Cortex Garage and parked Kong in a repair 
station.  A short little man walked up to me and held out an electronic pad 
for me to read.  “Welcome back Kur, I have made arrangements for the repair 
of your AC.  I need you at 100% for my plans to work.  Good luck.”  It was 
from the CEO again.  One of these days I am going to have to ask him his name.

    The short guy and several other men started work on my AC, pounding out 
dents in the armor and repairing the weapons and anything else that needs to 
be done.  I was just watching them work when the electronic pad, still in my 
hand, beeped at me.  I read the new message.  “I am sure that by now you have 
noticed the slight upgrades we have made to your AC while you were in the 
hospital.  We have installed a speedometer capable of reading speeds up to 
10,000 mph. not that you will ever go that fast.  And we have slightly 
increased your radar range and changed the ID number on your computer system 
so that other Ravens and MTs computers won’t be able to recognize you.  We 
have also added a program to your system to make it more personal.  Not a 
very powerful upgrade but it will allow you to make a more personal 
connection with your AC letting you feel more comfortable.  Anyhow, enjoy 
your new upgrades, I look forward to our next meeting.”  I turned off the pad 
and sat in a chair thinking about Trish.

to be continued