Having remained outside of the combat's epicenter - which pretty much corresponded with whatever area that Brick found himself in at any given time - Lily had managed to avoid taking much damage for the first half of the engagement or so. She would fire a few rocket salvos off at the Cataphracts tangling with her lance's two Assaults, helping to soften them up considerably until one of the Capellan 'Mechs finally got tired of letting the missile rain go unpunished.<br/><br/>It was only once the Cataphract pilot was already committed to chasing her that he realized his mistake. Having picked out a suitable spot in advance, Lily lured her foe right into an area of the city where the buildings were tall enough to impede all of the Cataphract's weapons while still allowing the top of it's cockpit and massive shoulders to peak over, leaving it completely exposed to more missile fire. If the 'Phract tried to run, he'd be dead before making it to cover, and Lily always positioned herself in a way that would make it impossible for him to charge in closer than minimum LRM range without exposing himself to an unavoidable hatchet strike.<br/><br/>She could see the enemy panicking pretty much the same way that she'd seen rookies panicking in the arena (even herself, once or twice), twisting and turning indecisively until he'd sustained so much damage that she was able to come out from behind her cover and finish off the Cataphract's side torso with the first, and so far only shot from her lasers. The slightly uncomfortable but so far not at all unbearable heat in her cockpit spiked briefly, and she took an AC5 shot as well as a couple of glancing blows from two medium lasers that did nothing more than trace a couple of shallow scrapes across her Axeman's chest, but it was a pretty trivial price to pay in exchange for downing an entire enemy 'Mech.<br/><br/>The second time that Lily pulled the same play, her pursuer had been bolder, and had very boldly pursued her right up until the point when five tons of sharpened metal ripped off one of his arms on the first swing and decimated windshield, cockpit and Mechwarrior on the second. She payed for that kill by taking more damage than she did when collecting the first one, but it was somewhat spread out and nothing to worry about too much quite yet; a few paper cuts compared to the abuse that Erich's Awesome was taking.<br/><br/>It had been a good start, but providing moderate fire support and picking off strays wasn't going to cut it anymore once enemy reinforcements really started pouring in and the fighting got much more dense. Lily was already wheeling her machine around to go take a much more active role fighting alongside Erich and Alroy when she received the latter's transmission, and she<em>almost</em>deferred to the man's seniority complied with what he'd asked her to do, but in the end she couldn't really agree with the order and he wasn't the company or lance leader. The VIP already had Double G and Defiance as escorts, Lily felt like a third would just be overkill and that she'd be much more useful helping out in the main skirmish.<br/><br/>"Negative, Vice, my babysitting license got revoked."<br/><br/>With her two lancemates already handling - or at least attempting to handle the Pillager - she set herself the task of mopping up and/or distracting as many of the incoming Cataphracts as possible. Rounding a corner, she was lucky enough to flank one of the enemy 'Mech by pure chance rather than skill or planning, allowing her Axeman's hatchet to carve through thin rear armor from from shoulder to him in one single swing. The top part of the 'Phract remained connected to the bottom only by a few cables and warped pieces of metal as the pilot ejected, but shortly after that lucky victory, Lily herself found herself flanked by not one but two foes.<br/><br/>Practically every warning and alarm other than the one for excessive heat started going off in unison as her cockpit was rattled violently, her 'Mech taking all sorts of autocannon fire from both the left and the rear with a few lasers peppered in on top of it. Just like that the armor on most of her rear torso had all but disintegrated, and the arm where her large pulse laser was mounted had maybe a third of its protection left at most. If anything else caught her from behind, she was done, and outmaneuvering a bare minimum of two (but probably more) enemies wouldn't be nearly as easy as it had been to toy with just one at a time.<br/><br/>"Uhhh, boys, I don't mean to rush your playdate with your new friend or anything, but the attention out here's getting to be too much to handle, even for me," Lily said over the lance channel with perhaps more than just a tinge of nervousness in her voice. Protecting her rear by twisting her torso to absorb shots with her right arm and hatchet whenever she wasn't covered by buildings, she did her best to navigate the urban maze and link up with Erich and Alroy so that they could make their escape together.