Booooom! Booooom!! Boooooooooom!!

I could hear continuous explosions reverberating from the distance.

The military had begun their attack.

I glanced at Emma once more, and received a reassuring nod from her. I sighed.

The operation had skyrocketed in scope, and I wasn’t too comfortable with it. It had expanded from merely stealing a white mecha and making good my escape to gaining full control of two bases by sheer manipulation.

I am a very ambitious person. Yes, of course you know all about it. But for all my ambition and aggressive pursuit of said ambition, I was only ten at that moment, and had only spent a very short day with my red mecha core. Wild ambition which would take me to heights I had never imagined before was merely a seedling in my heart.

I was not ready.

Not ready to take big bites out of established gangs with secret back ups and the country’s military. Not ready to plant myself squarely in the crosshairs of every armed organization within a hundred kilometers of my position with nothing but a lie and a white mecha. Well, the white mecha made it much more bearable, but still, you get my point.

All I wanted at that moment was to hide in some obscure corner, take a deep breath, and hatch dark plans to slowly grow my power. Slowly but safely, thank you very much.

However Emma, this may sound like a cliche, but by God, she was born ready. Eight years old, and a mere few hours of exposure to my red mecha, and already the crazy plan to take over the country had taken form in her mind.

Or maybe, just maybe, the plan was already there in the first place, planted by her incredibly out of this world genius but also out of this world crazy grandfather. Who on earth teaches kids the 36 strategems of Sun Tzu to the point where they could easily put them into practice at 8 years old??

And of course if the plan was already there in the first place, then I must be her final piece of puzzle. Or a wild card. Or a catalyst of some sort which hastens the execution of the grandfather-granddaughter crazy grand plan.

Or maybe, she was just an incredible genius who saw a golden opportunity before her and grabbed it with both hands.

As you can see, I have absolutely no idea where the plan came from. Yes, even now. I never did get to ask her about it.

Because, as you know also, that crazy plan backfired on us.

Exploded.

Boom.

And from the ashes of that first plan, Emma brought forth another plan which culminated in what you people call “The Lake Andrews Fiasco.”

The first and most important ability that a general can have is the ability to remain cool under fire. The second most important ability is the ability to give clear and timely instructions, especially when bombs are exploding all around you and everybody is panicking.

In the heat of battle, especially if things are going south and all of your battle plans are shredded into little atomic pieces by your wily and despicable enemies, even the most stalwart veteran will panic.

And in that moment, a general’s ability to give clear and definite commands is much more important than whether the command is good or not. As long as your troops can feel that you are calm and in control, they will quickly clear their heads and respond to your commands.

Maybe not respond. A better word might be cling. They will cling to your commands like a drowning sailor clinging to a lifeline. And your commands will probably very much be a real lifeline for them.

And not fifteen minutes later, I was very clear that Emma was born to be a general.

I was dashing through the trees in a modified blue mecha, trying to get as close to the battle as possible. I needed to know whether or not the white mecha was deployed.

However, curse my rotten luck, I stumbled into three Red Dragon mechas sneaking about. They were probably trying to flank the military and launch a surprise attack.

A fool’s errand, if you ask me. Although blue mechas were equipped with anti-detection technology, they would never be able to take a military force by surprise. They would have blanketed the area with countless spy drones and would have detected them the moment they entered the drone’s range.

Still, their foolish errand unexpectedly bore fruit and sent a dagger straight to the heart of Emma’s original plan.

The three mechas immediately opened fire at me.

PEW! PEW! PEW! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

“GAHH!!” I shouted in surprise. I threw myself to the ground and rolled away, dodging the high energy beam attack by the blue mechas.

I was about to turn and run away when Emma’s voice rang out coolly from behind me.

“Cut left and focus fire on the left mecha. Do it now.”

I didn’t know why at that time, but I instantly did as she instructed. I dashed madly to the left and fired three homing missiles at the left most mecha. I also fired off a few low energy beams at it for good measure. At the same time, I released a little bit of my red energy, trying desperately to weaken the other two mechas without overdoing it.

It would be fatal if they reported anything back to base.

Plus, I thought I could do with real life mecha combat practice. I needed it pretty badly.

PEW! PEW! PEW! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The leftmost mecha raised its shield and took my missiles and energy beams head on.

The other two mechas continued to press their attack on me.

PEW! PEW! PEW!! BOOM!!!

One energy beam hit me on my side.

“OOF!” I was thrown to the ground. But before they could press in for the kill, I rolled away once more.

“Go into close combat with the left mecha!” Emma shouted from behind me.

I gritted my teeth and leapt at the left mecha!

Crash!! I crashed into it.

Immediately, the other two mechas stop firing at me.

It worked!

I laughed maniacally and began to rain down punches on the downed mecha. Of course I did not forget to absorb many crucial components while I was at it. The blue mecha core, communication chips, everything.

After two quick punches, that mecha was basically a mere shell.