Chapter 455: Property Damage 1

Neville’s mecha crouched, then leaped. Instead of firing his heel thrusters at full burn, he tapped them just enough kinetic boost to clear the gap between rooftops without scorching the glass.

He landed lightly on the corner of an office tower. His silver-traced charcoal plating shimmered against the daytime skyline like wet ink.

Neville’s hands hovered over the thruster trigger.

Energy reserves: eighty-three percent.

Neville couldn’t afford to dance through the air again with manual control. It was just too tiring for him. Every full thrust burn would shave a noticeable chunk off his own energy.

What if he suddenly froze mid-execution? That would be bad. After all, he purposely lessened the defense of his mecha to make space for speed.

Let’s go with the new plan. Let’s leap around and make her thrash around by herself.

Neville’s mecha made another maneuver, and he flicked his eyes up.

Lilianna’s mecha had cleared the dust cloud and was lining up another beam volley.

Neville’s mecha sprang from the rooftop just as the beams arrived.

This time, instead of running, he ran toward Lilianna’s mecha’s center mass. He lightly tapped the rooftops with the tips of his heel thrusters, leaving no scorch marks.

The beams shot past behind him, punching into a residential tower that promptly began to lean—

KRAKKKK.

—and lean—

KRAAAAAKKK.

— and then topple.

[PROPERTY DAMAGE — PRETTIESTLILY +3,200 / NEVILLE +0]

[CIVILIAN CASUALTIES — PRETTIESTLILY +88 / NEVILLE +0]

Neville almost laughed inside the cockpit. He muffled it against his shoulder.

Lilianna’s mecha swung its great sword off its hip. Slung it free in a wide, gleaming arc that the simulation rendered with a shrieking sound.

VWOOOOOORRRRRRMMM.

She brought it down toward the rooftop Neville had just vacated.

The blade hit the building, but it kept going.

The blade went through the building, and the blade kept going.

And the blade went through another building.

A third tower buckled and folded onto a fourth.

[PROPERTY DAMAGE — PRETTIESTLILY +9,700 / NEVILLE +0]

[CIVILIAN CASUALTIES — PRETTIESTLILY +312 / NEVILLE +0]

Lilianna’s mecha stood at the edge of the wreckage, smoke rising off the flat of its sword. The twin wing-cannons vented their heat in long white plumes.

Lilianna’s mecha’s head turned its head slowly.

Neville couldn’t see Lilianna’s face, but he could feel that it seemed she had finally noticed something, and she was checking the readout.

Neville could feel that Lilianna was finally realizing that they were currently losing by approximately thirteen thousand property points and four hundred and thirty-seven simulated dead people in this round.

Neville felt that Lilianna finally snapped when Lilianna’s mecha’s missile pods popped open along its shoulders with a clatter of metal, flowering wide.

Neville’s stomach went cold.

Forty-eight missiles all at once in this kind of map.

Neville felt alarmed not for himself but for her, "— don’t —"

Lilianna couldn’t hear it and fired relentlessly at Neville.

The forty-eight missiles arced out of Lilianna’s mecha’s shoulder pods in a long, fan-shaped salvo. It left a trail of white smoke.

Neville’s mecha bolted out of his position. He couldn’t get up because going up would be worse; the missile would just follow him around and not detonate.

Neville decisively went sideways and went through the sky bridge. His mecha hit the glass tunnel at a full sprint. Drawing the plasma blades free in a single fluid motion—

Shhhing

Neville carved the bridge open from the inside as he passed through. Both blades scissored outward to split the glass tube and let him exit through the broken wall on the far side.

The first wave of missiles smashed into the sky bridge where he had been a half-second before.

FWA-FWA-FWA-FWAOOM.

The bridge disintegrated, glass and concrete bloomed into a glittering shrapnel cloud.

Neville’s mecha was already on the far side and was ducking behind a tower. It pressed flat against the matte black surface, listening to the second wave punch into the building’s far face.

THOOM.

THOOM.

THOOM.

THOOM.

The tower trembled, and forty more floors collectively turned into rubble.

Neville’s mecha sprinted down the side of the building, heel thrusters tap-tap-tapping to control the descent.

He reached street level just as the third and fourth waves of missiles realized he wasn’t where they thought he was. Then it went straight into the residential blocks behind.

KA-THOOM. KA-THOOM. KA-THOOM.

[PROPERTY DAMAGE — PRETTIESTLILY +28,400 / NEVILLE +0]

[CIVILIAN CASUALTIES — PRETTIESTLILY +1,206 / NEVILLE +0]

Neville stared at the counter.

Twelve hundred simulated people just from one missile salvo, that’s really horrible if that happened in reality.

Neville pressed his back against the alley wall, panting inside the cockpit. His mecha’s hands gripped tightly around the grips of his plasma blades.

He could end this round right now just by hiding for the remaining nine minutes or letting the timer run out. The damage counter would do the rest.

By his rough math, Lilianna had already lost the map twenty-eight thousand times over.

But—

A faint groan from above made him look up.

The tower behind which he had been hiding had taken too much damage from the missile spread. It was leaning and bowing outward from its own foundation. A long, hairline crack spidered down the glass face of the lower thirty floors.

And directly below it was a simulated daycare.

It was a whole simulated little playground with simulated tiny figures running around a simulated jungle gym.

"F*ck," Neville cursed out loud.

Seriously, whoever made this map was a psycho.

Neville moved his mecha away from this part of the map. The slingshot came off his hip in one fluid pull.

His mecha crouched, hooked the pouch of the slingshot around a chunk of fallen masonry the size of a hover-car, and fired.

He did not direct it at Lilianna’s mecha, but up, at the leaning side of the building. The masonry hit the cracked glass at an oblique angle, spreading impact across a flat plane rather than driving in.

The crack gave in, and the lean finally steadied. The tower wobbled, but it did not fall.

Neville exhaled.

[PROPERTY DAMAGE — NEVILLE +20]

Twenty? F*ck that.

Then his mecha’s radar pinged.

Lilianna’s mecha was coming around the corner.