Three hundred first graders being surrounded by nine thousand older students eager to gain a free flag and break our winning streak.

It didn't look good at all.

The entire situation was almost definitely set up from scratch to purposely teach us a lesson.

And to make things worse, Sheera Lin had probably guessed that it might happen, and purposely sent me and the flag away with just three hundred kids to preserve most of the first graders' strength.

"A devilish old man and a devious classmate. How am I supposed to survive to the end of the year? Woe! Woe to me!" I thought to myself miserably for a split second before my anger returned to full force.

"But against all odds, I will triumph! I will show them that it is useless scheming against me!" I curled my lips in furious disdain and started to look for a solution to my predicament.

My power was partially back. It might be a little bit of an exaggeration to call the tiny wisp of dense red energy which returned to me as "partially". In fact, it was probably less than even a fraction's fraction of my full red energy capacity.

But it was a completely transformed wisp, and despite its minute amount, it was enough to increase my armor by multiple times. I was probably as strong as a Viscount - a standard blue mecha, in terms of armor.historical

Alternatively, I could direct all of the red energy and boost my speed to Count level as well if I chose to.

Against practice mechas, I could probably deal with a few hundred or even a thousand mechas at once if I wanted to.

With a couple of good strategies, I still had a fighting chance to not only survive the engagement, but also come out victorious with three flags!

"Hide the flag someplace difficult to access and return." I immediately ordered Eliana.

My first strategy was copied from Sheera Lin's. Let them fight over the flag with all of their strength. We'll clean them up after they are all heavily injured.

My second strategy was even simpler.

Hide.

Or rather, remain hidden.

There was no place in that mountain range to effectively hide three hundred mechas. Where we were positioned was already the best the terrain could offer.

Besides, moving at that moment would alert the enemies to our position. So we might as well stay put.

But those two strategies only applied to my three hundred.

I had my red energy wisp with me, and I was able to easily modify my armor slightly to blend in with the enemy during the upcoming battle.

Once there, I would be doing my god damn best to stir up chaos!

Very soon, Eliana returned to our position stealthily, and my resonance told me that the four groups of two thousand mechas were already partially converged.

A second later, sounds of mechas fighting violently sounded.

I nodded grimly in approval of my own genius and prepared to move out.

My first strategy was quite effective.

However, I quickly realized that something was wrong.

"Where are the thousand mechas?" I asked in a puzzled tone. I spread my resonance in the direction I last sensed them, and then gasped in surprise as I realized that they too were completely unmoving like us.

And not just that, they were also barely a couple hundred kilometers away from us!

"They are waiting for the four groups to duke it out first before swooping in for the kill." I realized. "Should I take this opportunity and strike at them when they are still completely powered down? Or strike at them from the rear when they make their move? But the longer I wait, the higher the chances they would notice us.

But if I attack now, I would alert the four groups that at least two more groups are nearby. They might not fight all out if that's the case."

I pondered about the situation for a moment before deciding to pull the trigger.

Destroy the one thousand mechas nearby first, before they destroy us.

I powered up my mecha and raised up my spear.

Hummmm.

The three hundred mechas started to power up all around me.

"Charge!!" I yelled and leapt forward towards the thousand mechas!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Three hundred grey coloured first grade practice mechas burst out of the trees around us and thundered down the slope towards the thousand mechas!

Within seconds, they came to view.

They had purple bands on their arms and purple trim on their mechas.

"Purple? They are the gifted program students!" Elise Wang gasped in surprise.

"Gifted?" My eyes widened in surprise. I did not expect to meet them so soon. "Is Emma among them?" I wondered as I leapt over a fallen log and quickly reached their first mechas.

WHAMMM!!

I barrelled into one mecha who was still powering up and pushed it down.

STAB! STAB! WHAM!

I gave two quick jabs with my spear to down the two nearest gifted mecha students and twirled it to give the third one a fearsome whack which easily caused it to lose balance and fall down as well.

Having experienced ambushing the enemy before, we all knew what to do.

We charged deep into the enemy lines without bothering to cleanly finish off our foes and tried to deal as much shock and awe damage as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Wham! Bam!! Bam!! Stab! Stab!

Shoulder barrels, shield smashes and ruthless spear thrusts rained down on my enemies as I led my men in what seemed like another successful ambush!

Very quickly, we managed to reach around halfway into the thousand mechas.

But I was completely shocked to find that after I burst out of the line of five hundred downed enemy mechas, I was brought face to face with the remaining five hundred enemy mechas in neat defensive formation!

"Shit." I cursed.

The second half of the thousand mechas were ready!