The Undying Mecha Emperor

"Oh alright. You're the boss here. He who is prudent lies in wait for the enemy. You're pretty impressive." Elise said admiringly.

"Interesting. Let's see what will happen next. Attack is the secret to defense, and defense is the planning of an attack. I think this is defense flowing into attack." Eliana guessed with a tinge of excitement in her voice.

I winced lightly in my mecha.

There was no philosophy behind my actions. I merely acted on instinct.

I wracked my head and tried to think what would be an impressive next step for us.

And after a full minute, I came up empty. There were simply not enough information for me to act upon.

And without information, I could only rely on my instincts. And my instincts were telling me that making too much noise at that particular point in time was too dangerous.

At that moment, a strange beeping sound could be heard from the flag I was holding in my hands.

"Flag bearer GPS mapping sequence initiated. The Flag will produce increasingly loud and urgent beeping sounds when it approaches another flag." Came the brief announcement from the flag.

It wasn't too loud, and only the two girls who were standing right next to me could hear the flag.

"Hmmm? The flag is beeping rather slowly and lazily. There must be a flag not too far away from us." Eliana said as she pondered the options available to us now that a new variable had entered the fray.

"Wait a minute. It is very slowly increasing in speed!" Elise exclaimed.

And very far in the distance, my sharp ears finally caught it.

Boom. Boom.

The faint sound of a huge number of mechas on the move.

"Power down. Completely. All eyes on me. When I power up, follow suit and charge the enemy with me!" I immediately ordered.

The three hundred mechas obeyed instantly.

By then, the booming sounds were very audible. They knew that we were about to ambush our first enemy!

"And not just any enemy. A flag bearing one." I smiled grimly as I tracked their progress with my weakened resonance.

I could feel my resonance getting stronger and stronger, which was really good. It meant that Devour was making progress.

But even with Devour dormant and my resonance weakened so drastically, I was still able to sense the enemy mechas.

It was a vague feeling, but I could easily estimate their number at around a thousand. Maybe slightly less. And thankfully, none were airborne.

It would be a full land battle!

"Three hundred against a thousand. With the element of surprise, but with far weaker pilots. I need to increase the odds in our favor." I thought.

"The expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him. We should move the flag and make the enemy chase after it." Eliana's voice sounded in my ear as my personal comms came to life.

"Excellent suggestion. Power up and move southeast for one kilometer. Wait for my instructions." I agreed.

Eliana's mecha came to life and I quickly tossed her the flag.

She exploded into action and rapidly disappeared from sight.

Not long after, the enemy's massive footsteps started to accelerate as well.

Boom boom boom boom.

They were angled slightly to our right, and based on their trajectory, they would pass by us by the narrowest of margins.

We were on the left slope of a small valley, and there were trees spread out all over.

Visually, we wouldn't be very visible.

I could only hope that there were no sharp eyed kiddos in the incoming group.

Their thousand mechas would be dashing across the base of the valley, and it would be more than perfect if we could spring an ambush on their rear.

Those in front would be immediately placed on a spot. Fight against the enemy and let the flag go? Or leave their comrades and go after the flag? But what if there are more enemies up front? Should they run away instead?

There would be different opinions from among them, and beautiful chaos would descend upon them.

If that happened, my three hundred would have no problems destroying every single last one of them!

But a wise man once said, battleplans are always fuckd when the enemy appears, that's why he is called the enemy.

And it was true.

"Justin, just so you know, the Flag is currently double beeping. There is another flag nearby!!" Came Eliana's voice through my comms.

"What? Damn it." I cursed Sheera Lin vehemently and cast out my resonance as far out as I could towards Eliana and her surroundings.

But as soon as I did that...

"F***!!!!" I shouted with all of my heart.

There were not one, not two, not three but four groups of mechas!!

For some reason, several grades had chosen to come to the mountain range we were in!

And then with startling clarity, I realized what was going on.

The other grades had more intel than us.

They knew where our starting point was.

And they were hunting us!!

"The instructors really want us to have a taste of failure, huh? Well guess what? I WON'T LET YOU!! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THAT HUH?" I roared in anger!!

I was pissed.

They purposely stacked the odds against us!

BA-DUMP!!

BA-DUMP!!

BA-DUMP!!

My heart started to pound heavily as the dormant red mecha core awakened in response to my roiling fury.

A small amount but incredibly dense red energy leaked out from the semi dormant red mecha core.

As soon as that happened, my resonance strength spiked and I was able to accurately sense the details of the mechas that were around us.

"Bunch of sneaky, incorrigible arseholes." I grimaced as I surveyed the situation. "The damned old man must be behind this. He purposely took the opportunity when my red mecha core is dormant and forced the situation to make me taste defeat!!"

Four groups of mechas were marching to our position.

All four groups were at least two thousand strong, and these were excluding the first thousand which were already closing on us!