Defend!" Priamus grimaced.
He had allowed the ferocious reputation of the enemy general to cloud his mind, and had taken far too many precautions in anticipation of a killer move from her.
He had discounted the strength that his five hundred fliers posed and did not expect the enemy to take it so seriously that they were actually willing to give up their terrain advantage just to mount a ferocious defense which would be able to dish out as much as they received from the fliers!
But before Priamus could beat himself up further and respond to Sheera's move, she made another move which caused him to grit his teeth in anger and confusion.
Peeeewww!!!
A blue signal shot out from the rear of the plateau, and immediately, the seven hundred fifty mechas from the slopes did a sharp about turn, and started to scramble back to their original positions!
"A feint?!" Priamus almost choked in his own saliva.
"Hoooo. A first grade self appointed general is able to execute a faint with not one, but two different units? This current batch of first years are truly impressive!" General Anthony Chang said with great approval.
"Indeed. It is not just the Lin girl. The whole batch is excellent. Most ten year olds I know are still muddle headed bundles of cuteness. But for some reason, a full five thousand ferocious ones are gathered here!" Admiral Terry Wei said in an impressed voice.
"For some reason? The reason is abundantly clear. Of course it is the National Mecha Pilot Academy's incredibly strict entrance test and ridiculous experiential learning method! Which were, if you recall, heavily influenced by my Long Family methods of raising up kids.
These kids knew from even before they started school that every single day would be a battle, and that the battles would be hard fought." General Peter Long said with a slightly smug voice.
The other two generals could only laugh helplessly at General Peter Long's unprofessional and absurdly close ties to his family.
Back in the battlefield, Priamus Jin was ordering his soldiers back to pressure the western slope.
"You're being led by the nose, I hope you realize that." Emma announced loudly even as she coordinated her fliers to unleash hell upon the battlefield below.
They were flying relatively low to allow them a certain measure of accuracy, but not so low that they would feel the undiminished brunt of the first graders' rifle fire.
It was a fine line to tread, and Emma's standing order was to sacrifice accuracy for safety.
She would rather take nine missed shots to get to the one accurate shot than go for an accurate shot and lose the mecha completely to enemy fire.
For the moment, her strategy was turning out to be a brilliant one.
With so many dead mechas strewn carelessly all over the battlefield, her five hundred fliers didn't really need a high amount of accuracy to make hits.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
One mecha after the other were smashed by direct hits from the fliers' rifle fire.
"I know. We are up against a very capable general. Pressure the three hundred heavies and the fakers hard! Make sure they don't come to attack us in a pincer attack." Priamus responed curtly to Emma.
"I hate to inform you, but I think these dead mechas on the battlefield aren't fake first graders pretending to be dead mechas. I barely did any damage to them despite several lucky hits. They are truly blackened vic- damn it! Not all are fake! There are several real ones! Watch out! Pull up! Pull up damn you blind morons!" Emma shouted loudly.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Clusters of "awakened zombies" suddenly stood up from random spots in the battlefield and fired upon the five hundred fliers from directly underneath them where the distance between them was the shortest.
Bam! Boom! Crash!
The surprise attacks from the fake dead mechas took several of the five hundred fliers by surprise and managed to trigger their emergency landing systems, effectively shutting them down and removing them from the battle.
"Press the attack. Do not let up." Priamus ordered Emma.
"Get to your squads and initiate Lotus Cascade Attack Sequence!!" Emma shouted as she dove down in a maniacal move.
As soon as she broke from the group of five hundred and plummeted downwards, she started rapid firing at the three hundred heavies in a breathtaking display of courage, skill and impeccable decision making.
Many of the "awakened zombies" stopped shooting at the five hundred fliers and started to shoot at her instead. At the same time, many of the three hundred also started to focus shooting at her.
With a single move, she had drawn all of the attacks to herself and neutralized the threat to her team.
Selfless?
Hell no.
She had a personal mission to accomplish, and she needed her team of fliers alive and well in order to do it.
There was no way she would be able to pressure the entire first grade army enough by herself to the point of forcing me out.
Yes.
She wanted to fight me and thrash me again!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Hundreds, then thousands of rifle fire criss crossed the sky as the first graders tried their very best to shoot down Emma's mecha.
But Emma's RPL was no less earth shakingly high than mine, and coupled with her own high level of training and skill, none of the attacks were able to hit her.
"Hot damn that is some really good flying! The Air Force needs her!" General Anthony Chang shouted excitedly like a little boy finding out that there was a piece of his favorite chocolate on his desk while he was in class.
"Hmmmm. The navy needs to regenerate our pilots too. Emma Whitefrost would be an excellent addition." Admiral Terry Wei said probably with drool already dripping down his beard.
"Feel free to squabble over her. The Army has no interest in adding any more Whitefrosts." General Peter Long sneered.
"I want her." General Anthony Chang said firmly.
"Yes you want her. But the Navy needs her. Needs trump wants. She is mine." Admiral Terry Wei said resolutely.
At that moment...
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Emma finally returned fire, and even as she was pulling off incredibly complex and effective escape maneuvers, she was still able to accurately shoot at three heavies.
And more than that, it was one shot one kill!
"F*** you and the navy! I want her! And that's the end of it!" General Anthony Chang shouted hotly. "She is born to fly, and there is only one division in the military where she can fly her heart out, and that is in the Air Force!"
"F*** the air force! How the freaking hell are you going to reach the enemy if you're flying missions from a billion miles away? Her skills are better suited to the navy where she will be experiencing real combat real soon!" Admiral Terry Wei shouted back at General Anthony Chang.
As the two generals squabbled over Emma, she was continuing her solo performance by completely avoiding all the continuous rifle fire being thrown at her while slowly destroying one heavy mecha at a time.
With the attention of the heavies and the awakened zombies on her, the five hundred fliers were free to execute their Lotus Cascade Attack Sequence to perfection, just as Emma had intended.
Like a beautiful lotus blooming, the fliers shot upwards in a cylindrical formation for a couple hundred meters first before blooming out in ten different directions.
Ten at a time, the fliers streamed out of their ascent and dived downwards after Emma, their guns ablaze and firing at the distracted awakened zombies.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The awakened zombies started to take casualties and some crumpled to the ground, their ruse finally becoming an ironic reality for them.
However, there were at least a couple hundred of such awakened zombies, and the few that were put down did not impact the situation by much.
The Lotus Cascade Attack Sequence, usually extremely deadly in normal battles, failed to achieve much in its deployment against Sheera Lin.
Why was it that way?
For the most part, it was because there were only five hundred fliers.
The Lotus Cascade Attack Sequence depended on never ending waves of mechas flying out from a central spot to impact the battleground in all directions.
With only five hundred, the number of waves that could be made were limited, and so is the number of mechas that could be sent out per wave.
With low numbers, the effectivity of the Lotus Cascade Attack Sequence was diminished.
However, it was also in a small part influenced by Sheera Lin's genius move of getting each and every awakened zombie to be accompanied by two or three blackened students from the previous engagements.
They were the perfect "meat shields" for Sheera Lin and her soldiers!
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