“Ok coward.  Come out of the tree!  This is no way for an honorable Raven to 
fight!”  No way to fight?!  I’ll show him.  “You are just mad because I’m 
winning!  It’s only honorable if it doesn’t inconvenience you.”  He fired a 
few round from his bazooka into the tree top in anger.  One came very close 
but I didn’t move, not wanting to give away my position.  I started to 
formulate an idea and began thinking about the mechanical physics of it when 
I looked down and saw the tank flying up to meet me.  This hampered my plan a 
little bit but with a little improvisation it might work out better.  

    As the tank flew up, he circled the tree trying to spot me.  When he was 
just about to pass under me, I let go of the tree with my left hand and 
brought it down activating my blade at the same time.  If it worked once, it 
might work again.  I cut the branch off the tree right out from under me.  
The huge branch and my AC fell out of the top of the gargantuan pine.  I used 
my boosters just enough to stabilize my self and fall next to the branch 
hiding myself from the view of the flying tank.  I was hoping the branch 
would land on my opponent but I had no suck luck.  He lifted his weapons and 
hit the huge branch with everything he had.  The branch exploded and split in 
half when the rocket, plasma bolt, and bazooka and howitzer shell plowed into 
it.      the two halves of the branch fell harmlessly to the sides of the 
still rising AC but he didn’t count on me being right behind the branch.  As 
soon as I was level with the tank I fired my boosters and rammed myself into 
the Tank with my plasma sword swinging.  I managed to cut the right arm off 
and it fell to the ground below along with the massive bazooka.  I heard a 
booster ignite and looked up to see two huge laser cannons pointed at my 
head.  they fired, burning the antenna off my ACs head.  I was close enough 
to the tank AC that the EO’s couldn’t hit me.  I lifted my energy shot gun 
and fired into the EO’s destroying each one.  My opponent was struggling to 
get his left arm in between my AC and his to use his howitzer.  I immediately 
boosted back and shot my grenade launcher into the chest of the heavyweight 
AC leaving a huge dent.  The AC immediately cut it’s boosters and fell to the 
ground.  I thought that I must have killed or knocked out the Raven inside.  
I was surprised to see the tank roll as soon as it landed.  

    “Duh Kur, he ran out of energy!”  He has been hovering around for a few 
minutes now.  That meant his only weapons were his howitzer and rocket 
launcher.  I fell to the ground in front of him and boosted to the side to 
avoid a howitzer shell.  I kept moving to the side then forward.  I could see 
the tank trying to turn around but it was too slow.  I moved in tighter and 
continued to circle my opponent.  I finally got behind him and lowered my 
grenade launcher over my shoulder.  I was about to fire when suddenly I was 
looking at the front of the huge tank.  “He has turn boosters?!  Why doesn’t 
anybody tell me these things?!”  If he could use turn boosters that means his 
power is recharged.  I suddenly found my AC lying on it’s back when a 
howitzer round went off near my AC.  I soon found that I couldn’t move my 
legs.  I looked down only to see my ACs legs buried under the huge tank 
treads of my opponent.  His rocket launcher lowered and pointed at my chest.  
“Now you see, when you fight in the name of God, you are unbeatable.”  Oh 
jeez just kill me already.  “And when you stop your assault to talk about 
God, you leave yourself open for attack!”  I lifted my AC into a sit-up 
position and buried my blade in the core of the massive AC standing over me.  
The AC never fired it’s rocket.  I managed to push it off of my ACs legs and 
found that, thanks to the soft forest ground, they still worked.  I stood 
myself up and examined the tank standing in front of me.  from the looks of 
it, I punctured the generator.  The pilot should still be alive and I kinda 
preferred it that way.  

    I boosted over to where I remember the hidden door being.  I slowly 
walked through the holographic tree and cut the door open with my blade.  I 
jumped into the dark tunnel and fell about 1000 feet.  “Ok Kur, now that you 
are inside, you are looking for a steel box roughly 50 feet long, 20 feet 
wide, and 20 feet tall.  It contains an AC part that we can’t let this 
company have.  You will destroy the part completely.  Once the assignment is 
completed, you will make your way back here and await further orders.”  I 
activated my mapping sensor and began walking down the hall way.  I came to a 
door that was locked.  I let my ACs computer hack the lock and the door 
opened.  As soon as I walked into the room, 4 automated gun turrets lowered 
from the ceiling and began firing machine gun rounds at me.  I ran to the 
side and managed to avoid most of the spray, I lifted my arm and fired my 
energy shot gun as fast as I could.  Two of the turrets exploded and the 
other two just stopped working.

    I picked one of the two other doors in the room and walked through.  
There were several hundred boxes lining the walls and stacked on the floor in 
the room I was now in.  None of them were large enough to be the box I was 
looking for so I began to walk through the middle isle to the door on the 
other side.  My AC stopped moving forward for some reason and I found that my 
ACs arms wouldn’t move.  I looked to the side and found two MTs holding my 
ACs arms.  there was nothing on my radar so I figured they had some type of 
jammers equipped.  Just great, that’s all I needed, MTs with radar jammers.  
I noticed that each MT had a back mounted plasma cannon and each was about to 
fire at point blank range.  I hit my over boost and dragged the MTs at nearly 
the speed of sound down the narrow isle and stopped as fast as I could about 
20 yards from the door on the other end.  The momentum of the MT ripped them 
from my arms and drove them head first into the door.  The MTs exploded from 
the impact and the door fell over.  I boosted through the opening and 
continued on past the turrets that lowered from the ceiling.  I kept boosting 
until I reached another door on the other end of the room and my computer 
opened it quickly enough.  

    I stepped through the door into a narrow hallway.  the door closed behind 
me and several hatches along the walls opened and nearly 50 small, wheeled 
MTs rolled out into the hall.  They were pretty fast little suckers with 
energy machine guns.  They all rolled in my direction and what seemed like 
millions of tiny energy bolts flew at me like a swarm of bees.  I was taking 
heavy damage and I had no room to maneuver.  I fired my shot gun into the 
mass of MTs and was happy to see several of them fall.  I was taking them out 
pretty quickly but it was too slow, I was taking way too much damage with 
this ultra light core that bitch gave me.  

    I activated my chain gun and fired as many bullets into the swarm as fast 
as I could.  The MTs were falling by the row.  Eventually all of the MTs were 
just a smoldering pile almost to the ceiling of the narrow hall way.  I 
didn’t really feel like trying to dig my way through so I just backed up and 
fired a grenade round into the pile.  The MTs exploded and scattered down the 
hall in pieces.  “Huh, I should have done that in the first place.  Oh well.” 
 

    I took a moment to do a damage check.  Most of the armor on the front of 
my AC was ruined.  The hydraulic pump in my right arm was cracked and leaking 
due to the strain of the MTs I pulled through the over boost.  My left arm 
had lost a few bearings in the elbow.  My grenade launcher only had 5 shots 
left.  My chain gun had 122 shots left and my shot gun had 24 charges left.   
I began to walk down the hall wondering how much farther I’d have to go 
before I found my target.  I reached the end of the hall and walked through 
an open door into a large warehouse looking room.  the walls were painted 
black, and there were no lights on at all.  I stepped inside the room and 
activated my night vision.  As soon as I saw what was in the room I tried to 
step back through the door but it shut quickly behind me, I was trapped.  

    In side the room were 4 ACs, all of them were exact duplicates of the 
tank AC I fought earlier in the forest.  As soon as I lifted my shot gun the 
ACs sprang to life.  They boosted in all different directions and began 
firing everything they had at me.  Before I knew what I was doing I had 
boosted across the room and behind the AC furthest away from me.  Just as I 
thought, it fired it’s turning boosters and faced me.  I grabbed it’s head 
with my left hand and pulled as hard as my AC could.  the head twisted and 
crunched a little but I couldn’t pull it off due to the weak and damaged arms 
of my AC.  I boosted to the left just as the AC fired it’s bazooka.  I let go 
of it’s head and ran behind it.  It didn’t follow my movement so I figured I 
had blinded it.  I ducked under a large rocket headed at me from the right 
and rolled to the left to avoid another from the AC in front of me across the 
room.  I fired my grenade launcher and took out the tread of the tank that 
fired the last missile.  At least they aren’t as talented as the Raven from 
outside.  

    I boosted to the right and next to the AC standing there.  I extended my 
blade and cut through the plasma cannon on it’s back just as it was about to 
fire.  The undirected release of energy caused an explosion witch blew the 
right arm off the AC.  I noticed a rocket coming in behind me so I jumped to 
avoid it.  the rocket hit the AC I whose cannon I just cut.  The rocket hit 
at the joint that held the core onto the ACs tank legs and the core rocked 
and fell to the ground.  While in the air I over boosted for a split second 
and sent myself flying at over 700 mph across the room.  I had to use my 
boosters to brake in mid air before I slammed into the wall.  I dropped down 
on top of the AC below me and drove my blade through the top of it’s head and 
into it’s core.  The AC began to explode as I boosted away and faced the last 
fully operational tank in the room.  It was firing every weapon it had at the 
same time trying desperately to hit me.  I don’t know how but I managed to 
dodge everything it threw at me.  Every round and energy bolt fired at me 
exploded on the titanium wall behind me demolishing the entire thing.  

    The tank soon stopped shooting and charged towards me.  I figured it was 
out of ammo so I allowed it to come closer before I unloaded the last 4 shots 
of my grenade launcher but when the smoke cleared, the AC was still coming at 
me, without it’s head and only one arm, but coming at me.  when it got near 
me it swung it’s arm and almost hit my core.  I used my plasma sword and cut 
my opponents remaining arm off.  It boosted forward and pushed me through the 
hole in the wall and into the next room.  I couldn’t stop my AC from tumbling 
over backwards but I managed to do a somersault and stand back up on my feet. 
 I activated my blade and dashed forward to cut into the AC but the elbow of 
my left arm seized up and wouldn’t move.  I lifted my energy shot gun and 
unloaded the remaining shots into the chest of the very determined tank AC.  
It finally stopped coming for me and I wondered how it knew where I was when 
I blew it’s head off.  Then I noticed the AC whose head I tried to pull off 
had somehow repaired it’s self and was probably directing it’s comrade 
through a com link.   As soon as I noticed it, it fired a bazooka round at me 
witch hit my leg despite my attempts to dodge.  My left leg below the knee 
joint was blown off.  My AC fell to the floor and I thought I was done for.  
I looked around for anything to help me but there was nothing except a large 
box.  Huh, my target, lot of good it will do me now.  I managed to roll my AC 
onto it’s side and face the Tank AC rolling towards me.  I activated my chain 
gun only to find that it wouldn’t work.  

    I tried to stand up using my right arm to hold onto the box and pull 
myself up.  I finally got myself up on my right foot and turned to face the 
tank that now stood 20 yards from me.  “So, this is the dishonorable Raven 
that defeated my father and my brothers.  It is a sin to hate but I think God 
will forgive me for hating you.”  Well I guess that explains things a little. 
 All of these Ravens were related.  I guess the one outside was the father.  
This guy had the same weakness his father had.  “You guys talk too much.”  He 
fired his plasma cannon and I used my one leg to jump over the shot and 
towards my enemy.  I spun to the right in mid air lifting my right leg up and 
then kicking it strait out and into the chest of the huge AC.  The ACs core 
rocked back and sparks flew from it’s waist as the core righted it’s self.  I 
was stuck laying on the ground again right in front of my opponent.  “Nice 
try, but it was too little, too late.”  The tank began to back up to get a 
clear shot at me with it’s plasma cannon.  As it rolled back, it rolled up 
over the debris from the fallen wall.  As it climbed over the rubble, the ACs 
core fell forward and couldn’t get back up.  

    “Damn you Raven!!!  You’ve broken my waist servos! ARGG!”  I could see 
the Raven trying to lift it’s head to get a sight lock but it couldn’t due to 
the damage I caused when I tried to pull it off.  I used my halfway good arm 
and leg to push myself back to get out of his line of sight.  Once I was back 
near the large box, I crawled behind it and lifted myself up onto my leg 
again and crouched so that the other AC couldn’t see me.  I punched a hole 
through the side of the thin steel box to see if there was something inside 
that could help me.  There was nothing of use to me, just a few new cores.  I 
stood up all the way and noticed the tank was rolling towards me ready to 
fire it’s bazooka as soon as it caught sight of me.  I decided to go all or 
nothing and I used my boosters and over boosters to launch myself at the tank 
rolling my way.  As soon as I hit the switches my AC shot forward so fast my 
speedometer was displaying an error message.  I couldn’t take the G force for 
much longer and started to black out.  As my vision was going dark, I steered 
my AC towards the damaged tank.

    I woke up bleeding from my eyes and ears.  I looked around and saw that 
my AC was still operating.  I checked my map and found that I was up against 
a wall several hundred yards from were I last remember.  I tried to stand but 
I couldn’t use my right arm any more.  I managed to get myself away from the 
wall using my leg and then using my boosters I got myself into the air and 
was able to land.  I half hopped and half boosted back to where the large box 
was.  On my way I saw the core of my last opponent lying on it’s side in very 
bad shape and up ahead was it’s tank legs laying upside-down.  I hobbled past 
that and to the box.  I had to destroy the cores inside or my mission would 
be a failure.  But I had no idea how I was going to do that with no weapons 
or arms.  I needed an idea, anything.  I looked around and nothing came to 
me.  I hobbled through the hole in the wall and looked around in there then I 
continued down the hall and into the warehouse where I was attacked by the 
two Mts.  I knocked boxes over breaking them open looking for anything to 
help me.  Finally I saw what I needed. 

    I stood my AC against a wall and opened the cockpit hatch.  I climbed 
down the AC and ran to the broken container that caught my interest.  It was 
full of explosives, probably for sabotaging other corporations new products.  
I lifted one of the huge blocks onto my back and walked all the way back to 
the box with the new cores in it.  It was a very long walk when you aren’t in 
an AC.  I set the bomb inside the generator housing of one of the cores and 
made my way back to get another bomb.  

Eventually I got all of the cores rigged and set to go off in 20 minutes.  I 
ran as fast as I could to my AC and climbed up the leg as fast as I could, 
but by now I was dead tired and could barely lift my arms.  I could hear the 
charges go off and alarms all around me were going off.  I quickly found the 
strength to climb again and made it to my cockpit just as some MTs came 
boosting in from several directions.  I strapped myself into my control 
harnesses and prepared myself for battle.  But the MTs were boosting right 
past me.  “They are automated!”  they were going to the source of the 
explosions and made no move to stop me from boosting to the entrance of the 
compound.

    I reached the entrance to the compound with no problems.  “Good work 
Raven.  I doubt many could survive what you just went through.  In any case 
you still have one more mission to perform.”  “Wait just a minute! how am I 
supposed to do anything else with the AC in this condition?  You have got to 
be out of your minds!”  Jeez, could this day get any worse?  I have been up 
for 24 hours, I had work in like 30 minutes, and I have a date to show 
probably the hottest woman to ever walk the earth around town in like 12 
hours.  “Relax Kur.  Your mission doesn’t require the use of the AC.  You are 
to find the Raven that piloted the AC you defeated in the forest and steel 
the key to his AC.  Kill him if you must, it doesn’t matter to us but we want 
that key.  His AC seems to be equipped with some very interesting performance 
enhancers.  We must study his design and see what we can learn.”  

    I let my AC fall over onto the forest ground because I had no intention 
of climbing up and down it’s leg again.  I exited the cockpit and walked to 
where I left the defeated tank.  On the way I heard foot steps so I hid 
behind some bushes at the base of one of the giant trees.  What luck, my prey 
is coming to me.  I ducked down out of sight and waited for the man to walk a 
few feet past me.  I jumped out and tackled him to the ground.  I managed to 
punch him in the back of the head and knock him out.  When I turned him over 
I saw the face of an old man.  He had to be 70 with gray hair and a gray 
beard.  I searched his pockets and found his AC key.  I pulled him to the 
base of the tree nearby and sat him up against it.  then I ran back to my AC 
and called the mission director.  “Ok there I got your key, now please come 
and get me out of here.”  “Ok Raven.  The transport will be there shortly.”

to be continued

    By the time I loaded my thoroughly destroyed, barely running, and 
unrecognizable AC onto the transport, flew home, and took a shower, I was 
more than 45 minutes late for work.  I had to find a way to be a Raven 
without needing this job to find missions.  After about 15 minutes of yelling 
from my boss and a month long pay cut, I got to work on the first AC in the 
shop.  It was a nice light hover design with a standard laser rifle, a light 
missile launcher, and an independent weapon dispenser.  From the look of it, 
I’d say he won his match at the arena but he still had some damage.  I 
pounded out a few dents and repaired the damage radar and sent the AC on it’s 
way.  A few other ACs came through with light damage and lucky for me, I was 
able to leave early.

    I went to my new house for the first time in a week.  I slept for 3 hours 
and got dressed for my date with Trish.  I drove to the main entrance of the 
Global Cortex building.  She was more beautiful than I remembered her.  She 
was dressed in tight white blouse and an expensive looking leather jacket.  
The tight white pants and boots she was wearing showed off her legs very 
nicely.   It looked like she got her hair cut because I remember it being 
down to the middle of her back but now it was just shoulder length and 
lightly curled inward at the bottom to frame her face in a golden halo of 
silky soft hair.   When she noticed me walking up to her she smiled and threw 
her arms around me in a tight hug.  “Oh hey, hi, Trish, you look great.  Very 
beautiful.”  “Thanks!  You look good too.  So what are we doing tonight?”  I 
was in heaven.  I had the most beautiful girl in the world holding me like I 
was the last guy on the planet.  “Well I don’t know how sick of armored cores 
you are being a Raven, but I thought we might go to the arena and watch a few 
matches.”  “Great, I would love that.  I haven’t been to the arena in months. 
 My dad is a Raven too, he only fights in the arena and he is pretty good.  
Last time I heard from him he was ranked B-3.”  Well now I know where she got 
the money to become a Raven.  “Well lets get going then, my truck is right 
over there.”  

    We walked to my truck where I opened the door for her and we drove off to 
the arena.  You can see the arena from miles away.  It’s the biggest building 
in the city.  Inside is actually 7 combat areas under one roof.  There is the 
regular open area, the dessert area, the arctic area, the warehouse area, the 
city area, the space station area, complete with zero gravity generators, and 
the forest area.  I’ve never been to an arena match before so I was really 
looking forward to it, especially the space station area.  That has to be 
some exciting battles in there.  

    All the way to the arena, Trish and I made small talk about her parents 
and how she became a Raven.  It turns out that while she was a battle MT 
pilot, her only contractor was her brother who hired her for every one of his 
missions.  She only had to fight when her brother got in a little bit of 
trouble, or when the enemy was weak enough for her to take it out in a few 
shots.  When she told her father that she wanted to become a Raven, he 
decided to arrange the whole deal with her brother to keep her alive long 
enough to be a Raven.  This was a pretty smart idea because even the best MT 
pilots are nothing to even a beginning Raven, so nearly 85% of all MT pilots 
are killed within the first year.  The statistics fall by 10% for every year 
the pilot survives.  One of the reasons I decided to skip that step in my 
path to becoming a Raven.  

    We made it to the arena in about 20 minutes.  It was our lucky night as 
tonight was the night of the finals.  There were going to be matches to 
decide the champion of the E, D, C, B, and A class Ravens, as well as a few 
other matches, 20 in all.  We took a moment to look at the huge life size 
statue of Hellfire, the AC of the greatest Raven to ever compete.  I still 
thought it look very familiar, but I just couldn’t place it.  I bought out 
tickets, they were nearly 5000 credits but I decided that I had enough money 
that I could blow five grand on a date like this.  I got us some 10th row 
seats because the first nine rows were filled.  Once inside we got on the 
turbo lift that took us near our seats.  We walked for about 5 minutes down 
the isle and found our seats in the 10 million seat arena.  The field in 
front of us was the dessert area, set up for the first match between the E-28 
and E-27 ranked Ravens, witch were the lowest ranks that would battle 
tonight.  

    I should mention the way the arena works.  Each battle area, the dessert, 
the forest, etc. are all built one on top of the other in a large circular 
pillar.  The pillar is then lowered into the ground or lifted into the sky to 
line up whatever battle area with the audience.  It takes around 10 minutes 
for the pillar to move from the top area to the bottom one, so it is pretty 
fast.

    Trish was sitting on my right leaning against me and shivering a little 
from the November chill.  I would have offered her my jacket if I was wearing 
one so I just lifted my right arm and put it around her shoulders.  She 
looked up at me and smiled, then got a little closer.  “I hope they have some 
good matches tonight.  From seats like this we might feel the heat from the 
missiles.”  I was pretty sure she was joking, well I hoped she was joking.  
what’s to stop a stray missile from hitting the people in the stands?  “By 
the way, I mean no offense but how did you afford these tickets?  I hope you 
didn’t spend all your money on me tonight.”  Well at least she knows I was 
willing to spend a lot on her.  “Remember when I told you I had something 
going for me?  Well, it helped me get these seats for us.”  I tried to say it 
in a tone that didn’t make it sound like I was a drug dealer but I am not 
sure how I did.  “Yeah I remember you mentioning something like that.  So 
what is it?”  Crap.  “Well, uh.  It’s a secret.  I’m not dealing drugs or 
anything.”  Smooth Kur, really freakin smooth.  “Well just as long as you 
aren’t selling your house to pay for this date.”  I guess that means she 
cares about me, doesn’t it?  Jeez I was falling in love with this girl I’ve 
only spent a total of 45 minutes with. 

    The arena announcer came on over the loud speaker to announce the first 
match.  It was a slow match with not much going on.  The contestants had a 
hard time hitting each other but not because of their opponents dodging 
skill, they just sucked.  It took 10 minutes for the first one to run out of 
ammo and the other, an overweight AC with light legs, boosted over and 
managed to cut into the core of his helpless opponent and win the match.  For 
the next match, the arena pillar lowered to reveal the open area level.  
According to the pamphlet we got from a vendor, the next match was between 
the D-4 and D-5 ranked Ravens so it should be a decent match.  The ACs names 
were Aspirin, a light weight hover AC with a sniper rifle and a long range 
plasma cannon, and Claymore, a fairly heavy AC whose only weapons were a 
MOONLIGHT and a very long solid metal sword.  From the distance I couldn’t 
tell what type of metal the sword was made from, but I understood why the AC 
was so heavy, it had to be just to hold up that huge heavy sword.

    “Hey Kur, I’ve heard of this guy.  He uses that sword like an ancient 
Roman gladiator.  He is so far, undefeated and some say he might make it to 
the A rankings if he keeps improving as he is.  Of course though, most don’t 
think he’ll make it out of the D rankings.”  I was amazed, I haven’t heard of 
ACs using solid close combat weapons in nearly 150 years.  “Does he ever do 
any missions, or is just an arena AC?”  “You know, I don’t know.  I do know 
however that his sword cost him 4,000,000 credits.  He was either very rich 
already, or made a ton doing missions before he moved to the arena.”  “4 
million?  Jeez what kind of metal is that thing made of that it costs 4 
million credits?”  Now I was really stumped.  For that kind of money he could 
have any weapon he wanted and he buys a solid metal sword?  “Well, he didn’t 
buy the sword for 4 mill.  He had to spend that much to have it found and dug 
up on Mars then transferred to earth, cleaned up, and checked for weaknesses 
and repaired.  The sword is actually nearly 200 years old.”  “Well I guess 
that explains it.”

    The match started and it was as exciting as I thought it would be.  
Claymore, the heavy sword wielder over boosted in fast to close the distance, 
but Aspirin the sniper was one step ahead and took to the air.  The sniper 
was obviously aiming for the head of his large opponent but Claymore was very 
good at dodging.  I guess that explained Aspirins unusual name.  Claymore 
also took to the air and I was surprised to see him get so close to Aspirin 
who was trying desperately to back away.  Once Claymore was in range he swung 
his MOONLIGHT but just missed the quicker sniper AC.  Aspirin boosted away 
and landed in the middle of the arena but Claymore was right on top of him, 
literally.  The heavy swordsman nearly landed on the sniper but the quicker 
hover AC managed to dodge a swing of the heavy sword.  As the heavy AC lifted 
his sword for a second swing, Aspirin turned off his hover boosters and 
landed on the ground to fire his cannon.  The heavy AC had no time to dodge 
the plasma cannon shot so he didn’t try.  He just lifted his sword to block 
the bright pink bolt of energy.  The ancient sword was blackened but not 
damaged, and Claymore over boosted in again and this time the hover AC could 
do nothing to avoid the slash because he was still grounded.  The huge sword 
swung in a wide powerful arch and sliced Aspirins core in halves.  The battle 
was won and Claymore was now in the D-4 position.