全城危机

I remember our first engagement with an AAR very vividly.

We had entered the seventh solar system just a day prior and were making our way towards the Symphonian base planet.

We were attacked by an AAR - a full regiment.

The AAR Regiment must have whooped for joy when they saw us in their radar systems. Twenty five Symphonian vessels? Only ten were battlecruisers? Food!

They did not even bother to ambush us, choosing to confront us directly from the front.

They would pay for their arrogance with their lives.

It was a pretty interesting sight for me at that time.

A single Haran-equivalent of a battlecruiser appearing before our fleet of ten battlecruisers and fifteen destroyers.

And every single person in our fleet of twenty five tensed up.

It was the moment of truth. Aragosh Dragonos had told us that we were as strong as the Harans head to head. Our dragons gave us an insurmountable edge against them, even if our equipment and our training were lacking.

We believed him, of course. It was just that we had heard so many stories of Symphonian massacres at the hands of AARs that we had in our hearts a rather sizable reservation as well.

That first engagement would put Aragosh Dragonos\'s claim to the test.

To put our minds at rest, Aragosh Dragonos decided to send out one of the weaker regiments to deal with that AAR.

Yes, you guessed it.

It was me again.

I was a pretty solid choice for him.

My mechas were a solid defensive composition with the ability to counter punch really hard. Plus, in terms of dragons, I only had 10, which was slightly less than the other regiments.

If I could do it, they could do it too, right?

That was the message that Aragosh Dragonos was trying to send.

Damn him for putting me in that position.

To this day, I could remember my panic, my fears and my growing horror at having to fight the AAR regiment to regiment.

But bless his mighty heart too.

Because the victory I won that day changed me completely. I was like the proverbial carp which soared to become a dragon. Only that I was already a dragon. So I soared to become a much more fearsome dragon.

Unlike dealing with the pirates where I spaced my battalions out to occupy as big an area as I could, I bunched my troops together this time.

Nine hundred heavy mechas gathered in five rows of a hundred and forty five. Three thousand medium skirmishers were arrayed neatly in front of the heavy mechas in twenty rows of a hundred and fifty. In front of them were another four thousand light mechas in twenty rows of two hundred.

I had in \'reserve\' a hundred heavy mechas and a thousand medium mechas. Only that they weren\'t reserves. I had a special plan for them.

The battle quickly started without much suspense. The AAR unleashed their combination of fighters and mechas. Their fighters served the same function as our light mechas. They swirled out into our flanks and attempted to draw out my light and medium mechas into battle. But I ignored them.

I had my medium mechas sit tight and endure the light attacks of the fighters. I sent out my light mechas to tangle with the fighters to keep them busy. The fighters were less maneuverable than the light mechas, but they were much cheaper to build. The AAR had brought along almost ten thousand of them out to play. My light mechas were outnumbered by a factor of slightly over two to one.

But Aragosh Dragonos\'s words quickly came true, as our light mechas managed to dodge and deal with the attacks of the fighters while at the same time dealing critical damage to them. Within a short ten minutes, the fight for the flanks were as good as over.

We had bloodied their fighter squadrons without even losing mechas in the double digits.

Our competence must have come as a massive surprise to them because they quickly pulled back their remaining fighters and placed them behind their main mecha advance. They remained in that support position for the rest of the battle.

Their fighters were on the cheap side with lower quality compared to our light mechas, but their main mecha army was a totally different case.

They only fielded one type of mecha in the battle. In our terms, they would fall somewhere between a medium and a heavy mecha, but leaning more towards heavy. They had a full three thousand of them.

Their armor was incredible. Our light mechas dealt absolutely no damage to them. I quickly pulled back our light mechas as well and had them prepare to focus fire on a few select enemy mechas to at least be effective.

And as we were about to find out soon, their firepower was definitely a sight to behold.

Following our standard procedure, my medium skirmishers began to advance and attack the enemy mechas under the covering fire of my light mechas. It was a terrible mistake, one that I paid for very dearly.

Three thousand medium skirmishers advanced to attack their mechas, and only two thousand three hundred fifty returned a few minutes later.

The enemy mechas absolutely trashed our medium skirmishers.

I pulled the medium skirmishers back as well and had my heavy mechas move forward to take the front line. Their orders were simple. Have their mages summon their barriers at full strength and keep the enemy out for as long as possible.

Their main job was to hold their ground and wait for my signal.

Because under the cover of battle, I had led the hundred heavy mechas and one thousand medium skirmishers which I had heavily modified by adding stealth and speed modules, to flank the enemy, and would soon be in position to charge straight for their battlecruiser.

Together with all nine of my dragon commanders, I would go and cut off the head of the snake by blasting that battlecruiser to smithereens.

That would be the signal for all of our units to immediately unleash everything they had in an all out offensive.

"Charge!" I shouted with deep exhilaration as I led my special task force past the point of no return. At that point, the battle was as good as over.

Ten large dragons followed by a hundred even larger heavy mechas and a thousand medium mechas was actually nothing much in light of an entire regiment. But when that regiment was busy many kilometers away hacking at a magical steel plate, we became a battlecruiser\'s worst nightmare.

We crossed the remaining distance in a blink of an eye, and unleashed hell upon the AAR battlecruiser.

The AAR commander was no fool. He had kept a portion of his forces in reserve. But although not a complete idiot, he was definitely an arrogant bastard.

The force he kept in reserve was merely a small squadron of fighters and less than a hundred mechas.

He quickly deployed them in a defensive formation while firing all his defensive turrets and cannons at us.

That arrogant bastard only managed to extend his pitiful life by a few minutes. My mechas took care of their mechas and fighters very quickly while we, the ten dragons, tore through the defences of the battlecruiser like a pack of ravenous wolves shredding apart a straw house to get to a fat and juicy lamb within.

BOOOOMMM!!!!

The AAR battlecruiser exploded in a beautiful, beautiful display of fireworks!

We had won!

Yes, we still had three thousand heavy mechas to deal with. But an AAR, no matter how highly trained by the military, was still effectively a mercenary group. With the destruction of their ship and the death of their leader, they had no more reason to stay and fight.

The fighters and mechas immediately retreated.

To their merit, they did not disperse and run. If they did that, I would definitely chase them down and clean house. They stayed together and began to make an orderly retreat.

Aragosh Dragonos would have none of it.

Sensing that the battle was over and that his message had been delivered loud and clear, he instructed five more regiments to help me with the cleaning up effort.

It was only until every single member of the AAR was dead that he finally got Zas to lift the spatial array that locked us down and prevented all forms of communication from leaving that array.

Aragosh Dragonos, through my hand, had achieved complete and utter victory in his first engagement with an AAR in the seventh solar system, and it was glorious.

As the main protagonist, I was heavily rewarded. Would you like to guess what my reward was, Your Majesty?

This.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

"Is that… A Black Hexacrow Beast Core?!?!" Alexander gasped as he beheld a beautiful black core with hexagram patterns on it.

"Yes, Your Majesty, it is." Blackfire smiled warmly as he placed it gently on Alexander\'s hand.. "Please accept this as my wedding gift to you and Princess Aleyria."