My saving grace, I believe, was that I didn't cross it for long.

I brought my white mecha concentration up to ten percent for exactly two seconds, just enough to allow my arm to deflect one vicious kick from her.

BANG!

She kicked me so viciously that her right foot was smashed to smithereens!

At the same time, I was finally able to push myself up!

"Ahh! I am finally standing up!" I shouted with great relief.

Sherry Lin didn't let up and smashed her hammer on my mecha with all of her strength!

WHAMM!

I barely managed to block it with my right arm. At the same time, my left hand shot out to grab her mecha.

If I could just get one good hit in, the fight would be over.

However, Sherry Lin was far too skilled to allow me to do that. She knew that the moment I caught her or landed one good hit on her, the fight would be over.

So she pulled out all of her tricks and considerable skills out of her bag to evade my every attempt to grab her.

She slapped my hands away, sidestepped to avoid my kicks and used her hammer so skillfully and in so many ingenious ways that the whole country was completely enthralled by her display.

And all that, with a smashed up right foot!

After a few minutes of fruitlessly attacking her, I stopped.

"We're wasting time. Let's make a temporary truce and we can resume our fight once we clear out the rest of the mechas." I said.

"Accepted!" Sheera Lin immediately shouted from somewhere behind Sherry Lin.

"Rejected." Sherry Lin said flatly. "You're going down, Whitefrost punk."

I guess part of the reason she made such a powerful impression that day was also because of the combination of my ferociousness in battle and my utter lack of fighting skills.

My ferociousness and the massacre I had just carried out made me seem much more formidable than I actually was.

People didn't see me as just any strong fighter. They saw me as THE student to beat. Plus the red light around me totally made me look extremely badass.

"The number one student in the entrance test! He is so powerful! Look at how many mechas have fallen to his fists!"

"Strong! Very strong!"

"And not just strong. He seems completely filled with bloodlust! Look at how fast he's mowing down all the other students!"

The crowd was completely enraptured by my kill count, and they didn't realize that I had no fighting skills whatsoever.

And a few minutes later, when Sherry Lin so skillfully locked me down, she actually managed to place herself above me in the mind of the crowd!

And so the crowd took all of my accomplishments that day, pegged me to a very high standard, and then they conveniently placed Sherry on top of all that.

"She's so skillful but so modest! She could have unleashed a massacre herself, but she didn't! What a perfect warrior!"

"I agree! She is actually so strong, yet she avoided showing off! It was only when this stupid brute made a mess of the Grand Melee that she appeared to put a stop to his antics! What a wonderful person she is!"

"Strong AND also humble. She deserves to be the number one student this year."

Fools.

If Sherry Lin could have massacred the kids like I did, she would have done it already.

Sherry Lin was no saint.

She is the strongest fighter I know, and one of the reasons she is so strong is partly because of her complete lack of emotions when she fights

I suspect she was born that way.

At any rate, she was already that way at ten years old.

The only reason she didn't unleash her own massacre wasn't that she was humble, it was that she couldn't.

Why couldn't she?

Because Sheera Lin said so, of course.

The Great Undying General, at ten years of age in the Grand Melee of the National Mecha Pilot Academy.

She was like a fish in water.

Sheera Lin had immediately understood the words that the Grand Elder Shella had said AND didn't say.

The winner of the Grand Melee was the last mecha standing. Every action would be recorded.

However, if the winner of the Grand Melee was the last mecha standing, then at times, wouldn't INACTION be as valuable as action? After all, if by holding back we could have a higher chance of reaching our destination, wouldn't that be as valuable as knocking down an enemy?

Possibly, even more valuable?

So she had immediately implemented the strategy of killing the chicken to scare the monkey.

They quickly took down several tens of mechas, and then arranged them messily around them.

The got into formation with spears pointing out and remained still.

With so many dead mechas around them and with so many mechas in their group, the crowd avoided them like the plague and fought among themselves.

Some even copied her strategy, to varying degrees of success.

None, however, managed to quite get the same feeling of ferociousness that Sheera Lin had so perfectly displayed.

That way, for the initial minutes of the Grand Melee, Sherry Lin's brilliance was effectively hidden.historical

Until I appeared near them.

I could totally visualize how their arguments took place at that moment.

"THIS IS REALLY BAD!" Sherry scowled at Sheera. "Look! He is getting all the spotlight! And it's all your fault! I should have just left your good for nothing ass behind and do as he did! That way, more people will praise me, and I will probably get my pocket money raised!"

"Hey! Don't use the "ass" word!" Sheera said.

"I'll use any bloody word I bloody like!" Sherry yelled.

"HEY! Don't use "bloody" as well!" Sheera scolded.

"Gahhh." Sherry almost pulled at her hair in frustration. But she kept quiet after that and stopped using bad words. "So what do we do now?"

"What else can we do? Wait for him to tire and then wait for the other fools to finish him up. Then we wait for more fools to finish the fools, and then for even more fools to finish the fools who finished the fools who finished him." Sheera shrugged and said easily. "And maybe after that, we can make our move."

"No can do. That's too long. I am attacking him now." Sherry Lin shook her head and said resolutely.

"No! Stick to the plan!" Sheera Lin said sternly.

"I AM sticking to the plan." Sherry Lin said as she drew her twin swords.

"You're NOT sticking to the plan. The plan states that you wait here with us!" Sheera Lin said with a frown.

"Yeah, YOUR plan states that. However, MY plan states that I take down that bullying little Whitefrost kid and show him who's the real leader of our generation!" Sherry Lin said as she began to move out of their formation.

"Gahh. Sherry Lin! You will pay for this! I am telling gramps!" Sheera Lin shouted.

"Yeah? Go on ahead and tell him! Tell him how I magnificently made the Lin Family Name rise to the heavens with my spectacular performance! Thanks!" Sherry Lin laughed.

Sheera Lin sighed.

But she was the Undying General, and she had many plans and scenarios in her head.

So she immediately put into play the scenario that had Sherry Lin take the spotlight.

"Horseshoe formation!" She barked. "Escort Sherry Lin to that bulldozer over there!"

Hmmm? Yes. I am recounting what Sherry and Sheera told me about what happened in their camp at that time. Not perfectly, of course, but that was the gist of what transpired.

And for once, I think Sherry Lin made the right call.

The Lin Family rose to prominence because of her performance against me that day.

Because even until this very moment, my battle with her is the closest I have come to a defeat by a mecha pilot.

Well, that was how it probably started.

Back to our story.

Sherry Lin, the Eternal Warrior, ignored my call for a truce, and charged at me once more!