"You got his power boost too?" James asked in a shocked voice before turning at me and raised an accusing finger at me.
"Bro! How can you give them your power? And even before they swore loyalyy to you too? They are not Whitefrosts!"
"What I gave, I can take away." I replied with a nonchalant shrug. "And granting my power this way is very limited anyway. It would not work as soon as you exceed a certain distance away from me."
"So are you saying that there's another application of your power that could work even apart from being close to you?" Elise Wang asked me eagerly.
"Absolutely. It won't be easy to acquire the required materials for it, but I can do such a thing." I nodded confidently.
"Awesome!" Eliana Wang said happily. "But let's pause those happy thoughts for a bit and clean up these buggers over here."
We crested a small hill and a few hundred meters away was a group of fifteen mechas hidden very poorly in a copse of broken trees.
"Sloppy." James sneered before blasting off to the skies. "You guys stay back! I will clean up these rabble within five minutes!"
"What a cocky fella." Elise Wang chuckled. But she did as he said and did not make a move, her mecha's eyes following James with rapt attention.
"Hey hey. Watch it. Don't start liking a Whitefrost now." Eliana Wang warned in a stern voice.
"Huh? What in the world are you talking about?" Elise Wang asked with a laugh. "I don't have a shred of feelings for THAT cocky Whitefrost."
"Aha! You don't have feelings for THAT particular Whitefrost! So that means that you DO have feelings for A Whitefrost?" Being her twin, Eliana Wang immediately caught on to Elise Wang's slip of tongue and pressed her mercilessly.
"Ah!? What are you talking about? We're still kids! Kids! What is like? What is a boy? I don't know? Hahahaha!" Elise Wang replied in a flustered voice.
As the two girls bickered back and forth, James was showing off his skills as a Whitefrost splendidly.
It was true what Elise Wang said earlier.
Even without their top fighters, the Whitefrost Clan was still a force to be reckoned with. The average level of their pilots' skills were at least a couple notches above the rest of the army's. And having been trained since young, the average skills of their kids were also notches ahead of the other families.
They truly were worthy of being the elites even among the shocktroopers of the Chinese Federation Army.
James shrewedly positioned himself with the sun directly behind him to make it difficult for his enemies to see him clearly.
Although it wouldn't matter much because he would show up clearly in his enemies' radars and their aiming systems would probably have locked on to him as well, a Whitefrost was trained to never waste any advantages, no matter how small.
If their enemies happen to turn their heads at him and their eyes got caught in the glare of the sun, they would be blinded for a second, and even two seconds. And in a battle, a second was an eternity. Two seconds, two eternities!
And as it were, the bunch of fifteen mechas all turned their heads to face him as soon as he appeared in their radars.
As one, they reflexively raised their hands to shield their eyes against the sun.
"Haha! They must be second graders." I snickered at their comical actions which were nearly in sync.
I knew at that moment that James would have no problems cleaning them out.
He opened with a trio of extremely well aimed and well placed long distance shots, immediately going after the heavy mechas first.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Three heavy mechas lost their heads and blackened immediately.
By that time, the remaining twelve mechas were reacting but in a really uncoordinated manner. Some charged deeper into the copse of trees, some raised their shields up and the others with cooler heads and rifles started to shoot back.
But it was beyond easy for James to dodge their badly coordinated shots with a couple of rolls. And as soon as he got out of immediate danger, those that fired at him became his next targets.
Pew pew pew! Pew pew pew!
Six shots. Six kills.
"Hoooo. This particular Whitefrost has some skills." Elise Wang said with deep approval.
"This particular Whitefrost? Why are you always comparing this one against the one that you like? You really like him that much? Wahaha! I am going to tell mom you like a Whitefrost!" Eliana Wang squealed with laughter.
And with that, they resumed their bickering.
I sighed and shook my head at them.
Girls.
But my attention was soon pulled back to the fight. James had stored his rifle and had drawn out his twin swords.
Six mechas were left, and James would be engaging them in close combat!
Diving down at extremely high speed with twin swords swung backwards ready to deal destructive slashes, James made for a very, very cool sight.
Slash! Slash! BANG!!
He allowed his two swords to run through two mechas who were so bad that they did not even manage to raise their shields, before throwing both his feet out to deliver a crushing blow and completely destroy a third one!
"Oooow!" I winced slightly for the poor third mecha. There weren't many injuries during classes because of just how powerful the reactive armors in the practice mechas were. But there were times when damage dealt against them were unintentionally stronger than the threshold of the reactive armors, and kids were injured.
It was extremely rare, of course. But that particular kick by James was definitely one of those rare moments.
The mecha literally flew off with massive cracks all throughout its blackened armor!
I immediately shot a couple of red flares into the sky to attract the instructors' attention.
That poor boy probably needed immediate medical attention!