"Haha!! Hardy you dumbass! Kit was just teasing you! Of course we all understand your parable!" Dike laughed at his rather naive buddy.

"Hey! Who are you calling dumbass! You can't call him that!" Kitiara shouted at Dike loudly. "He may be a real dumbass in the truest sense of the word, a complete retard, even! But that's not for YOU to call him that! Only I can do that, right? Hardie Dumbie?"historical

"No. Don't call me that." Hardy replied automatically. But as always and as expected, Kitiara ignored him.

"Nobody calls him stupid! Those that dare to do that will suffer the consequences!" Kitiara slammed the butt of her spear down with great power on the ground and glared at Dike.

"Alright alright, I won't call your precious boyfriend that." Dike said helplessly.

"I am not her boyfriend." Hardy replied automatically.

"Yet. You're not my boyfriend yet, dumbie! Hee hee!" Kitiara giggled and bumped his arm lightly with her elbow.

"You should have just let her die last time." Dike sighed at Hardy in sympathy and patted his shoulder.

"What happened last time?" Avery asked them curiously.

"Long story short, Kit was the last mecha standing after our first company got ambushed by the fifth graders. Hardy here was the scout of our second company which was bringing up to our rear. He saw Kit surrounded by a hundred fifth graders, and proceeded to give Kit covering fire as she slowly killed her way out. They both slaughtered at least fifty mechas before Kit successfully escaped. And ever since then..." Dike allowed his words to trail and simply waved his hands carelessly at them.

"I see." Avery nodded and looked at Hardy in sympathy as well.

"Enough chit chat you gossip mongers. Give us your instructions!" Kitiara snapped at the two leaders in irritation.

"Well. That kill zone looks perfect for a rain of death. If we charge in, our armies would be forced to split into two, and we would be very open to rifle fire from the slopes and from the plateau itself. And judging from the state of the ground, I guess that was probably what happened earlier." Avery began.

"Agreed. To counter that, I propose we circle around the mountain and attack the main army from the rear. The intel we received on the main army's location is rock solid right?" Dike said.

"Rock solid. I got it from a teacher. Hehehehe." Avery grinned.

"Circling around the mountain? That would take us half a day. The battle would be over by then! I say we find a better strategy to break this damn trap. I don't believe that we can't defeat a bunch of noobie first graders and their weak ass trap!" Kitiara said hotly.

"Sun Zhi once said, if the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move." Hardy said in a flat voice.

"Ahhh! My dumbie boyfie is so smart! See? He has the solution! All we need to do is to get them off that plateau and drive them off the slope!" Kitiara squealed loudly in happiness.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Dike asked her sternly.

"That's your job, Dikey. You're the leader right? Come up with something!" Kitiara said rather uncaringly.

"We have ten fliers. I propose we send them up and shoot at the heavy mechas. They would be forced to raise their shields up to defend themselves. As soon as they do that, Hardy can shoot at those mechas and destroy them. That should force them off the plateau." Avery said.

"I don't think that could work. The heavy mechas should have powerful rifles. They could shoot our fliers out of the sky." Kitiara argued.

"We would be shooting down from a great height. We would have much longer range than them." Avery said.

"But it would be far more difficult to shoot with such great range!"

"Let me shoot at them from the sky. The rest of our snipers can stay on the ground and take them out as soon as the opportunity presents itself." Hardy volunteered.

"Okay. Let's do that. But after we get them off the plateau, what next?" Avery asked.

"We take their plateau, of course. We station our own riflemen there and provide cover for us as we clear out the slopes. Let's get that done first before we discuss our next step. After all, things would probably develop midway that would force us to adapt." Dike said wisely.

"Agreed. Let's go!" Avery said.

And with that, the next phase of the massacre began in earnest.

Hardy Tam kicked things off by shooting up into the sky.

Once there, he displayed his godly sniping skills and fired down ridiculously accurate shots that forced the heavies on the plateau to go on the defensive.

Shields were raised, and they quickly returned fire. Alas, Avery was right. The range of the rifles was greatly reduced when shooting up, and Hardy was able to shoot down at the heavies in complete safety.

The snipers from the ridge started to move forward into position and began to shoot at the distracted heavies.

For a moment, it looked as though the plan was working very well.

The heavies began to take damage, and after two or three were taken out that way, they began to make their way down from the plateau!

"It's time for the black hole to absorb the light of the rising sun boys! Let's go! Shields up towards the mountain slope! Charge! Take the plateau! " Dike hooted out his orders in excitement.

The two thousand mechas began to charge down the ridge and into the killing field.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The gifted students charged in formation with their own heavies in front, followed mediums and then the light riflemen bringing up in the rear.

Within seconds, they waded into the killing zone where many mecha corpses were still lying everywhere.

There were at least two thousand five hundred such "corpses" on the ground.