Cole awoke to the radiance of the healing chamber. He felt so disoriented and weak that is was hard to comprehend his surroundings; he had no recollection of what had happened….

Who won? Was his first initial thought. He scrunched his eyes together to try to recall even the tiniest of details of the battle and with nothing but a excruciating pain in his head to show for it.

He instead decided to close his eyes and absorb the therapeutic mists around him, slowly restoring his strength, and with time…perhaps his memories.

As irritating a thought as it was this was not the first time that Cole simply blanked out like this…more and more it tended to happen more often, and in larger chunks. He still had yet to recall the conclusion to his battle against Maddox…he still had no recollection of his first face to face meeting with the Amazon quartet. So many aspects of him were slowly being taken from him…it was draining him and slowly taking a toll on him.

The healing powers of the chamber were restoring his strengths back, but he was beginning to realize that nothing could give him back his identity. Not only was he physically different, but also he was emotionally foreign to himself. Nothing could restore that.

The truth was that there were no memories left…they were gone and so was he…and yet he felt that it was no better a time to embrace himself—the new "himself" that would gaze back on him behind a mirror for his lifetime…however long his lifetime may be.

He opened his eyes and attempted to escape into the main chamber…perhaps the battle dome would give him some answers to the questions he possessed. He noticed several small cables on his backside and chest; carelessly he ripped them off and started off toward the exit.

He could feel the intensity of the battle taking a sick toll on his body. He collapsed and slid forward on his stomach. Those cables that he ripped from his body must have been keeping him stable; without them he felt worthless. Even the mists could not help him rise quickly enough; his only choice was to just lie until he could make his way out.

He gave himself a few more moments and pushed himself onto his knees. He struggled to stand, but alas he had managed to rise onto his feet. He stumbled to the exit as quickly as he could.

The muscles on his body felt so raw and flattened, they had contracted somehow and felt like they had been stretched to triple their size. It hurt to even think of running.

His heart stopped; he heard someone in the distance, instead of running back to the bed, he rushed out to get to the main chamber as quickly as possible.

Falling over seemed almost inevitable and being caught was even more so, but as long as some of the questions on his mind were put to rest, it would be to some avail. He had managed to limp out of the healing chamber and into an empty hall.

The progression of his healing went to a sudden halt and he looked outwards at the long and lonely hallway. He moved as quickly as possible and tried his hardest to keep his head up and body forward; if he collapsed, there could be no way to get back up.

Then the thought hit him…the only way the others arrived to the healing chamber was through that strange light that only Maddox could create…but he couldn't go back…forward was the only way to go, so forward is where he went.

He continued to slither through the hall, hoping with all of his heart that Maddox would not find him. He knew exactly where he needed to go…he wanted to find out once and for all what was happening to him during these blackouts. 'Who won' was a meaningless concept; he wanted closure—answers.

His muscles ached as if he was crawling on a carpet of razors, but if he managed to find the battle dome the pain would be well worth it.

Then the darkness Cole knew to be his pessimism disrupted his thoughts. Perhaps Maddox had already taken care of everything, perhaps there was no battle dome to find, and maybe all traces of the battle would be lost forever…Nevertheless he continued to move and find out for himself.

The hallway was coming top an end and Cole found himself in the center of a huge empty room quickly enough. The room felt frigid and sad…except for the very center of the circular room. In the very center there was a single thread of light that seemed to project from the very tips of the virtually never-ending ceiling. As it fell upon his scalp things felt that much less cold. There was a certain amount of happiness he felt in this light. He almost had the will and strength to stand even.

Your persistence is worth deep admiration, Cole, said an eerily familiar tone.

Cole glanced weakly to his sides, but shivered as he realized the voice seemed to tingle into his head from the single strand of light.

"Please tell me you are not Maddox," Cole said impulsively. He bit his lip at these words. It was more of something he preferred to keep in his head.

No, I am not Maddox…so please do not be hesitant to relax. You will not be harmed.

Ironically this put Cole further on edge. His lips quivered, "May I ask who you are then? I assume you think you know me."

The voice seemed quite surprised to hear his last sentence. Why do you say that?

Cole somehow felt much more at ease to say what was on his mind. "Look…whoever you are, I have heard many voices in my time, especially from the mysterious sort like you. I know that tone, and I know you are here to at the very least pretend to guide me and assist me in some way---

Cole was cut short. I assure you that what I have to say will not---

"I wasn't finished," Cole snapped. "Don't talk to me, I don't want to hear it…I am sick of everything and I really can't take this anymore! I don't know what it is about you…but when I hear your voice, it makes it so much easier for me to vent and just so what I want to say…so I am going to say it. I don't want to talk to you, because I don't trust you. I don't trust anybody anymore…", Cole babbled uncontrollably. "I have put my trust into more people and more voices then there are bibles in cheap motel drawers.

I have put trust into my teammates into standing up for me in the worst case scenario…like being framed for murdering a friend for instance…I have put faith in my own opponents to only be backstabbed…I have trusted the supernatural thinking that it isn't too much to ask to be a fairly decent human being in good faith that whoever the hell is up there wont spit in your face and blow up a city and kill your mother. And this is only the tip of the iceberg! I'm telling you I really don't want to hear what you have to say…for once I just want to get up and find something out on my own…see something with my own two eyes and go from there. I don't want voices to predict chaos…I don't want friends to tell me their hunches or their better ideas of action…I just want to do something on my own without somebody biting in the ass for every little goddamn thing I want to do.

You know what it all comes down to…I have just lost my faith…I have lost my faith in god, in love, in friendship, in trust, in memories, in enemies, and the common good. That is my problem…that is my flaw…I just am too ready to jump on the safety train of somebody else's words.

Who the hell knows why I am who I am. Who knows why its me with the scepter and not Julie Chang at International Studies 101 in Takyama. I don't know why, I never will, but I am sure as hell not going to believe anybody else's explanation. How many time's have I sad hell in these few minutes anyway? I sure don't know. I don't know, and I don't even care. Ha! I JUST HATE EVERYBODY! There! I hate you, I hate Matt, and Maddox, and Christie, and my mother, my father…everybody. I hate myself. I hate my scepter and I hate my life, my job, and my responsibilities. I don't care if you think I am babbling, so what, I hate you, remember, so don't you dare even think of saying another word to me you sorry son-of-a-bitch voice.

I hate what you mysterious types stand for anyway. I just want to be in a room by myself where nobody is there to hug me, or to hold my hand, or yell at me. I just want everyone to die for a little while sometimes…to be honest."

He suddenly felt tired and empty. The need and sudden urge to talk nonstop had leaked through his skin and he looked curiously around to realize that he was in the middle of a large crater in the middle of an even larger room. Everything was obliterated to a distinct nothingness in this room, and yet from the moments his finger tips touched this new surface he knew exactly where he was. He was where he wanted to be. He was where he needed to be. This was where he was, hopefully not very long ago…when he was in full physical health set to battle against his own teammate. This was where he lost valuable memories. He was seeing it with his very own eyes. Nobody told him what happened…nobody told asked him why it happened…he finally had an opportunity to look back at what he had left behind.

Tell me more. He thought darkly to himself.

The room became a shade lighter and everything began to move unnaturally fast around him. The crater was a foundation again and slowly the shards of desolation began to form a dome around it.

His eyes ached in frustration as a story was beginning to be told to him so fast that he simply could not understand it.

A wicked glow began to engulf his body along with the entire chamber for an instant…and in several moments he shook his head in disbelief; he could have sworn on his mother's grave that he saw his own self in the middle of this flurry of images and memories. In a second instant he even thought he saw a glimpse of David, but everything continued to be going to reverse. Everything was a cold blur.

Finally Cole was able to see the battle dome in its full glory, even the gravitational meter hovered over it as it had before.

A single shiver was sent down his spine; his thoughts were confirmed. He was about to witness the entire battle between him and David with his own eyes...although now he was the spectator as well as the participant.

David had already sent his knee into Cole's crotch and the spectator Cole couldn't help but relive that specific instance of pain. He never realized how badly he wanted to win this, whether or not he had known it at the time.

The even eerier concept of viewing this battle was that he could also see the rage and hatred seething through David's eyes. David obviously wanted Cole to be the loser as badly as Cole wanted to be the victor.

The thought of how or why he was watching this was completely erased from his thoughts. The strange voice seemed to have left the depths of his thoughts, or so he thought.

Little did Cole realize was that there was a certain power that this voice had over him that was indescribable and unimaginable.

Little did he also realize was that he would never remember hearing this voice again and in fact he would simply wake up in the same bed as he had before—never knowing why he could recall such vivid and gruesome details of the ensuing battle royale.

The harsh truth was that Cole simply did not realize his vulnerabilities as well as those who needed to exploit them.