Chapter 453: End of Round 1

’Where did he go?’ said the voice, sharp now.

"Where is he, where—"

’Where did he go, Lilianna?’

"I don’t—"

They don’t need to argue as Neville’s mecha suddenly came up from under her left elbow.

Lilianna didn’t have time to swing her greatsword. She only had enough time to twitch her mecha’s elbow and let the beam launcher whine up to fire—

Neville’s first dagger lanced into the beam launcher’s emitter housing.

With the tiny repulse core and perfect aim, a blue-white star bloomed in the muzzle. The launcher unfolded itself outward in a hot tin-can flower of warped metal.

Click.

Permanently.

"AAAHHHH!!! THIS B*TCH!!!!!" Lilianna screamed, her mecha’s right hand spasmed.

The great sword came around in a wild diagonal that was less a swing and more a fall.

But Neville’s mecha was not there anymore, but under the swing. His plasma blade scraped a long, shrieking line along the underside of her right thigh plate.

The blade didn’t bite through as Neville expected. But it was enough to leave another dent, much deeper a cut than before.

Neville quickly maneuvered his mecha to dance away from Lilianna’s.

Lilianna turned, but it was slower than she wanted to because of the great sword’s weight, dragging Lilianna’s mecha sideways.

"He’s making fun of me," Lilianna snarled.

’But you are giving him reason to make fun of you.’

Lilianna completely ignored what the voice in her head said. She fired another two missiles with a tracking program.

Neville flicked his wrist, and a second dagger appeared. He hooked it through the air on its tiny blue spark and kissed the lead missile’s guidance fin.

The missile pirouetted, confused, and slammed into the second missile in a small private fireworks display six meters off his shoulder.

The shockwave bumped his mecha sideways. He went with it.

Lilianna was now running the numbers in the HUD, and it was not looking good.

Both beams: recharging.

Missile pods: empty on the left, four shots on the right.

Knee turrets: ammo at sixty percent, but their cone of fire was useless above her hip plane.

Great sword: drawn, but every swing committed her for a full second and a half.

Wings: full thrust available, but the power management bar was tickling yellow because she’d kept boosting to chase him.

’Sheathe the sword. Save the missiles. Create distance and wait for cooldowns.’

"And give him time to breathe?"

’He is already taking a brake whether you give them to him or not. He is faster than you, lighter than you. The only thing you have left is patience, which you clearly don’t have right now. So, use it.’

But despite Lilianna’s earlier compliance with the voice in her head, she did the complete opposite.

Lilianna brought the sword up over her head in a great two-handed grip and dove.

Her mecha began plummeting from the sky, the plasma-edged sword raised overhead. She tucked her great wings back into a stoop. The white thrust roaring off the heels in a banner of vapor.

Neville saw it coming, and he had three seconds to execute his plan without a margin for expected failure.

He pulled the slingshot off his hip. He used a flash round with high-luminance; no damage could be incurred, but it was good enough to overload a mecha’s optical sensors.

Neville’s mecha pulled, aimed, and released.

Thwip.

The flash round took Lilianna’s mecha in the face at the exact moment the great sword reached the top of its arc.

A pulse of white light flooded Lilianna’s cockpit. Her HUD scrambled before the optical feed went a snowy gray.

For about one full second, Liliana was piloting a huge mecha blind

But since the execution of the move had already been input, the sword still came down. It just came down five meters left, where Neville originally was positioned.

The blade dropped into the sea. They could hear the hissing roar of plasma against salt water. A column of steam taller than a building arose.

The great sword sank to the hilt, and Lilianna’s mecha’s grip was too deep in its recovery follow-through to pull it back fast.

Why did she need to get it back fast?

Because Neville’s mecha was already at her back, ready to attack.

Neville had thought that the cleanest cut was through the wing hinges. It had been on his mind the moment he found it.

But not that he was actually positioned at the back of Lilianna’s mecha, he found the hinges right in the dead center.

It was exposed in the follow-through while the great wings flared wide for balance. The protective fairing rotated out of the way to allow the swing.

The voice in Lilianna’s head hurriedly warned Lilianna, ’He’s behind you.’

But it was too late.

Neville’s first blade went into the left wing hinge.

KRRRRRRRSCHHHHHHH—

A sound like a metal jaw breaking. Sparks fountaining up in a hot orange spray.

The hinge mechanism, with all its servos and its delicate alignment, peeled open under the plasma edge like a flower made of tin foil.

Neville twisted the blade, and all the components inside the hinge that were supposed to stay in their pretty little assembly went into the sea in glowing little drops.

The left wing was quickly detached and sagged

The wing folded down at the wrong angle, dragging. The thrust nozzle spat white fire sideways and violently yawed Lilianna’s mecha to port.

Lilianna fought it, killed the left thruster, and compensated with the right rudder. She pulled her mecha partway back into a recoverable yaw—

However, Neville wasn’t done yet, and the second blade went into the right wing hinge.

KSHHHHHHHH—

The exact same beautiful awful sound was heard.

The right wing detached.

There was a moment when Lilianna’s mecha hung in the air on the dying gasp of its heel thrusters alone.

Lilianna’s HUD told her, in cheerful red letters:

THRUST CAPACITY: 9%.

ALTITUDE: CRITICAL.

But it wasn’t enough to stay afloat.

Her mecha fell.

WHOOOOMMM—

It hit the Endless Sea on its back, and a geyser of white spray exploded fifty meters into the air.

Lilianna’s mecha sank fast, dragged down by its own armor and the great sword’s weight; bubbles boiled up, then a thinner stream, then nothing.

A screen notification appeared in front of them

MATCH POINT — NEVILLE.

ROUND 1 WINNER: NEVILLE.