Bam. My butt hit the ground as the helicopter wreckage disappeared completely.

The odds and ends which I had gathered throughout the two years were scattered everywhere around me.

I stared absently at my surroundings, my eyes took in everything there was to note about the situation, but my brain wasn’t having any of that.

Queue up, it told the information that my eyes were transmitting to it sternly. I’m currently overloaded. And so the information waited patiently somewhere in the holding area of my brain.

Because, overloaded it truly was.

A deluge of information had exploded within my brain, everything pertaining to the helicopter wreckage.

Detailed blueprints on how to build and modify it, images of every single component and their names and their functions and how they relate to other components suddenly appeared in my mind.

And not only that, the computer program that was controlling the entire helicopter was also there. In my brain.

I suddenly knew every line of code needed to write the software to control The Chinook.

Oh yes, I finally knew what model the helicopter was. It was called The Chinook. ZH-47J. A twenty fifth generation Chinook stationed in Japan. What a beauty it was.

But the true beauty, I realized, was the computer program that ran it. It was called the Advanced Avionics Architecture System (AAAS). It was connected directly to the pilot’s neural network, allowing him/her to fly the helicopter simply by thinking about it.

It was very, very cool.

It reminded me of my younger days when my dad was still around. He was the one who taught me how to read and write. He had instilled in me a great love for reading and learning, and up till the moment we were betrayed by his closest friend and he was killed right before my eyes, reading and learning was all I did.

My dad was a military man, and all he had at home were military books. There were no fairy tales or feven adult fiction. Literally every single book was military in nature. Tactics, strategies, analysis of hardware and software, history, political science, technology etc.

I didn’t care. I devoured them all hungrily. And so although I was a junkyard scrapper, and a successful one at that, I wasn’t totally without capital to succeed in life.

I had in my mind a wealth of knowledge about the military. Knowledge which I had intended to fully utilize for one single glorious purpose.

Revenge.

Oh yes, now you know why I did what I did a few years back. But the details of that story will come later. All you need to know that my thirst for vengeance is sated… for now.

Anyway, I knew everything about the helicopter. In mind-blowingly intimate detail. Heck, at that moment, I felt sure that I could make one if I just had access to the materials I needed.

And thinking of that made me feel rather strange.

I could make the Chinook if I had the materials. Definitely.

But I felt like I could do… more than that. I felt like I could make the Chinook. Period.

I thought of the Chinook wreckage which disappeared into a haze of grey particles and entered my body. Could it be that I can… make the Chinook? By force of will alone, perhaps?

Because I was just thinking of ‘taking’ the helicopter wreckage when suddenly, I actually did take them.

Make a Chinook. I commanded my body firmly while pointing at the ground in front of me.

Nothing. Damn it, why? Make a Chinook! I commanded my body again.

Still nothing. DAMN!

Make a Chinook!

Nothing.

“MAKE A CHINOOK! MAKE A MINI CHINOOK! MAKE ANYTHING WITH HELICOPTER BLADES DAMN IT!” I shouted angrily out loud, feeling slightly disappointed.

At that, my body began to respond. Metal plates grew out of my flesh at frightening speed.

Within seconds, I was fully encased with metal armor, from my head to my toe. And a four-bladed helicopter rotor grew out of my back.

I took a sharp breath and my heart pounded wildly once more in shock.

I did it. It actually worked.

“I MADE A MECHA OUT OF NOTHING!” I screamed in elation.

Well, technically not nothing, but you get what I mean.

I tried controlling the rotor. It responded exactly just how my arms would respond to my brain. I didn’t even have to think much about it, I simply just did it.

I adjusted the rotor so it was placed above me, supported by little pillars that were connected to my shoulder armor. I placed the tail rotor on my back like a shark’s fin.

Then gingerly, I started the rotors and voila, we have lift off.

HOLY SMOKES! HOLY SMOKES!!

What just happened?! I remember feeling ecstatic and surprised and confused and afraid and a bunch of other major human emotions all piled into one.

Remember your first times?

First time you tried the roller coaster, first time you went to school, first time you had chocolate, first time you skipped school, first time you kissed, first time you had… well. All those first times, add them up together and multiply it by ten.

You’ll be somewhere within the vicinity of what I was feeling then.

It was incredible.

And you can imagine my frustration when that first time was cut extremely short.

“Ding! Life forms detected. Approaching at high speed.” A robotic voice sounded from the Over Head Display.

Damn it, the gangs must have detected something.

Retract! Come back! I cried.

Immediately, my mecha armor disappeared.

Bam! My feet hit the ground just as the first members of the gang burst through the trees with their handheld weapons levelled at me.

Within a few seconds, twenty Red Dragon gang members surrounded me. A beautiful woman with red hair and dressed in striking red leather walked out of the group.

Amelia Dragonos. Leader of the Red Dragon gang. My heart dropped to the pits.

She was extremely notorious for being vicious. Precious few people could kill at the drop of a hat. Amelia could kill even before the hat was touched.

“Well, well. What do we have here?” She demurred at me coyly as she noticed my handsome features. She ignored me for a moment as she began to study the area. After a few short moments, she looked at me in confusion and asked, “Where’s the helicopter wreckage? And where’s Justin? Are you his… elder brother? Father?”

I stared dumbly at her for a moment. I could feel my world crumbling around me. So my home wasn’t as hidden as I thought? People actually knew that I lived here? AMELIA DRAGONOS knew I lived here??

Apparently she noticed my shocked look and wasn’t too happy about it because she immediately snapped at her underlings, “Capture him and bring him back to base. Bag everything in the area and look for clues.”

She glared at me as her men moved to secure my hands and feet with various gadgets. “You better have a satisfactory answer for me regarding what just happened in this area. If not, your limbs will be amputated and you will live the rest of your life as my toy.”

She turned around and stomped off.

And that was it.

My first meeting with Amelia.