Chapter 452: Fight

WHRRRRMMM—

Lilianna’s mecha’s shoulder pods rotated. Twelve micro-missile tubes peeled open in two crisp clamshell rows. The kneecaps spun their auxiliary turrets up to a clean, killing whine.

Neville exhaled slowly and pushed his throttle forward. His mecha dropped into a low skim, heel thrusters spitting blue, and the wing thrusters as it tilted to a hard cutting angle.

VS-VS-VS-VS—

Six missiles soon painted his HUD with neat little red diamonds. Neville’s mecha managed to peel off Lilianna’s mecha’s shoulder plating and began their hunting curve.

Neville banked, but it wasn’t a clean bank. His mecha did a snapping, hip-throwing kind of motion. Then, it folded sideways at the waist and skated along the wave-tops on one foot of pure thrust.

Two missiles overshot, corkscrewed, and came back. The other four were locked in tight.

They were close enough now that he could hear them.

Neville flicked his left thumb, and his dagger made another appearance.

Lilianna’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a quiet snarl. Her hands twitched on the trigger of the forearm beam.

Her mecha’s right cannon belched a thick white lance of plasma across the water. Steam roared up in a long curtain.

Did he get hit?

Lilianna watched the dot carefully as she tried to find Neville’s mecha.

When the steam thinned, the dot was a hundred meters to the left and closing.

KKKKKHHHK—

Neville’s mecha’s plasma blade kissed the Bastion’s left pauldron. And another long scraping shriek slid up and over the heavy plate and away again.

Another dent? Are you serious now?

Heat climbed the back of Lilianna’s throat.

"Damn it!" Lilianna hissed aloud.

’Temper.’ The voice in her head warned.

Neville’s mecha suddenly pivoted, and the blade reversed in his grip.

Lilianna’s mecha had two thick shells of armor over the chest and the major joints—shoulder, hip, and knee.

Even if the vital parts were hit in a frontal assault, it was not enough since his mecha wasn’t optimized for a damage dealer.

By his observation, the wings were huge and useful, but Lilianna had never used their transformed version because she knew that she would fall if she used them. But she did, she had to be smart about it.

But wings had their weakness, and if Neville exploited that, this round would be over.

Neville maneuvered around his mecha, taking a few grazing hits and observing the wings.

The spine was buried underneath a layered plate. It was exactly the kind of plating that he couldn’t punch through with twin plasma blades in the time he had.

But.

The wings themselves were rooted into the back at two clean hinge points.

Hinges had to move and loosen, so it couldn’t be made solid, right?

Great.

Now, he just had to get behind her.

KSHWOOOM—

Lilianna’s mecha’s right wing-cannon was discharged again because the others were at cooldown. The plasma lance crawled across the water in a long white wound.

Neville rolled his mecha underneath it, so close that the heat warning chirped politely in his ear.

But Neville brushed it off lightly. He came up on Lilianna’s mecha’s blind side, blade reversed, sliding under the right hip, and the kneecap turret swiveled, opened up.

Ratatatatatat—

Twin streams of projectiles caught him across the abdominal plating. Three of his ablative scales went red on the stats.

Neville felt the impact through the cockpit as a series of hard little knocks under the sternum of his mecha. He gritted his teeth, exhaled, and re-angled.

His mecha twisted in midair, vented through the wing thrusters, and broke contact in a long lateral skid that left a wake like a knife cut on water.

Neville was breathing out slowly.

Don’t be greedy, Neville. You can do it.

Lilianna saw Neville’s mecha peel away and went to chase it.

She kicked her thrusters up to ninety, and her mecha moved. She opened with the left forearm beam and then the missile racks again.

Soon after, the follow-up burst from the knee turrets.

The voice in her head said, ’The cooldown.’

"I. Know," Lilianna said, trying not to snap again.

’You’ve fired the beams three times in forty seconds. They need forty more seconds to recover. The micro-missiles will be empty in two more—’

"I know!"

’If you know, then do something about it!’

Neville’s mecha began a streak of charcoal against the bruise-pearl sky, looping out wide, then in. It was low across the wave-tops, hugging the surface so close that the spray feathered up around its ankles.

Damn it, she thought viciously. He’s pulling this stunt again.

Lilianna fired the right beam again.

Click.

[Recharging.]

Then, she fired the left.

Click.

[Recharging.]

The micro-missiles spat their last six. Two found Neville’s mecha and clipped a wing thruster.

Lilianna saw the spark and the brief stutter, but Neville’s mecha just rolled through it and kept coming.

Now four of her launchers had run dry.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it."

The voice ordered urgently, ’Withdraw to a higher altitude. Take the great sword and reset your position. You have wings, so just use them as wings, not as cannons.’

Since Lilianna already agreed to do what it wanted, she kicked her thrusters to full and climbed. Her mecha went up in an arc.

From up here, the Reaper was a tiny dark fish on a bright sea.

She drew the great sword, and the blade came out of its sheath with a sound.

KHHHHHRRRRRRMMMM.

Neville saw Lilianna’s mecha climbing higher again and felt his stomach drop.

Again? Can’t she think of another move? Neville thought and reflected, but it might be because she couldn’t think of any.

Neville also saw it as an opportunity. He cut his thrusters and let his mecha drop in a free fall. He did this many times that he was already accustomed to the pressure that comes with it.

Neville watched the water rush up at him through the canopy and heard the wind tear past his ears.

Then he punched the heel thrusters at the very last instant, and his mecha skipped off a wave-top, sideways, into the deep blue trough between swells.

Lilianna’s mecha lost sight of him again.

Great.