"James?! Oh my god, I am so glad that it's you!!" I shouted as a wave of relief washed over me. "Come! Let us work to- HEY!! WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SHOOTING AT ME?!?!"

"WAHAHA! DIE YOU OVERACHIEVING BASTARD!!" James roared out gleefully. "All units! Aim for the miserable punk I am shooting at! Fire at will Don't stop until he is a smoldering piece of junk!! He is an overachiever with a killer resume which our parents will use to compare us! Kill him! KILL HIM!!"

At his words, my heart flared up once more as all the relief that rushed through me a mere split second ago turned into fiery hot anger.

"YOU BASTARD!! I WILL MAKE SURE YOU GET NO BACONS FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAMN LIFE!!" I howled indignantly at the unfairness of the situation just as the first wave of light mecha rifle fire fell upon me like heavy raindrops in a thunderstorm.

Their bright rifle fire literally covered the sky and made escape for us completely impossible.

There was nothing we could do at that point in time.

We were fifty melee heavy mechas going up against almost five hundred airborne, rifle bearing mechas.

True, they were light mechas.historical

But they outnumber us by ten freaking times.

And they had rifles!

And they were airborne!!

I mean, I understood that sometimes life serves us lemons, and we had to learn to make freaking lemonades with them.

But come on!

We weren't given just lemons then. We were swimming in pure citric acid with barely a whiff of lemon in it! What sort of freaking lemonades could we make??

Out of fifty, only five survived that initial onslaught by James and his little band of misfits.

Yes, unlike what James had instructed them to do, the airborne mechas did not focus fire at me, and instead tried to wipe out my entire team cleanly!

Thank goodness they failed. Eliana, Elise and two others were able to raise their shields up in time and somehow by luck or by godly skill, managed to survive.

"Drop your weapons and grab those shields!" I shouted at them and pointed to the shields of our downed comrades. They immediately did as I said, and with that, we were safe from the rain of light rifle fire.

Which was good.

We only had five hundred mechas to contend with next.

Which was... not good.

Some dude once said that when it rains, it pours.

Indeed that's true.

Upon seeing that we were being beaten black and blue by an airborne mecha group, the purple mechas actually sent in a couple hundred mechas to confirm the kill!

And so at that moment, five of us had to deal with seven hundred mechas, all of them very highly motivated to finish the job in wiping us out.

"Follow me. If they are so willing to kill us at all costs, then they will pay for that unreasonable preoccupation with blood!" I said in a confident voice to the four of them and charged at the two hundred purple mechas making their way carefully towards us.

With one shield above us and one shield faced forward, we thundered forward and led the rain of light mecha rifle fire towards the gifted program mechas.

"Gifted program? HA! Another bunch of bastards our parents usually use as examples to yell at us! Kill them! Kill them all!!" James Whitefrost howled excitedly.

And that time, his team was happy to oblige.

The purple mecha pilots realized their error far too late. Even though they immediately made the right response in trying to disperse, it was like trying to run away from the rain.

It was impossible.

Wham! Bam! Smash!

James Whitefrost and gang happily mowed down the gifted pilots in their attempt to get to us.

Amid such chaos, my red mecha core seemed to be extra stimulated, and I could feel the digestion process speed up slightly.

It seemed to be able to sense my emotions, and tried to do its part to make its power available to me once more.

Another wisp of red energy was released into my control.

And as soon as it appeared, I knew that it was something totally different than before.

I had a very distinct feeling that I was holding on to some sort of steering wheel, or some sort of control mechanism.

"Is this the combined power of Devour and Control?" I thought excitedly.

I glanced up at the maniacally laughing James Whitefrost and realized that fate was very good to me.

I had the perfect guinea pig to use my new powers on!

Without the slightest hesitation, I sent that wisp shooting up to the airborne practice light mecha containing my dumbass brother.

Whoosh!

As soon as the red wisp entered it, I felt as though I had access to another mecha.

It was like having another pair of arms, legs and everything.

I could control it very naturally!

"Well well well. Let's see what sort of hell I can put you through!" I grinned sinisterly and whipped James' rifle around and started firing at his teammates.

PEW! PEW! PEW! PEW!

I wasn't shy about displaying my ridiculously high resonance and excellent aim, and I was able to very rapidly shoot down twenty seven of his buddies before they realized what was going on!

"What the hell? What's happening here? Why is my mecha moving by itself? Holy smokes! It even has excellent aim!!" James shouted. He tried to warn his teammates as well, but of course I shut off the comms.

"James has gone crazy! Put him down!" One of his buddies shouted.

Pew!

He went down.

However, the damage was done. At his words, all the mechas around James turned as one and fired at him!

Still, what was I? A weak mecha controller which would succumb to mere kids in light mechas with light rifles?

Hell no.

The red wisp I sent into James' mecha also gave me the power to strengthen it the way I did my own.

Shamelessly, I thickened my armor and charged towards the others!

"He's trying to get us to shoot each other! Switch to melee weapons!" One smart kiddo shouted.

Wham!

I threw my rifle accurately and smashed his mecha head into smithereens.

He went down.