The roughly twenty-mile-wide battle zone was a buzz of activity. War Suits of various makes and models, half of which were custom rigs that were a decent mix of bug ugly and actually somewhat acceptable in appearance, danced around, heedless to the infantry that were battling it out amongst the rapidly deteriorating network of fortifications.

Stray shots from these multi-ton legged war machines flew off in practically every direction, occasionally striking an ally or zooming off into the sunset. A few rather lucky wide shots would scream off past their intended targets, only to strike an equally despised one, which would occasionally render an unlucky War Suit inoperable and force the pilot to either bail out or try and wait out the battle in their now disabled metal box.

However, the course of the battle was gradually turning in the favor of Axton and his allied forces. With a few respawn points having manifested on the planet once the tunnels had been nearly finished, it merely became a matter of making sure that some of them were ‘special’. When a member of the defending Players kicked the bucket, they knew where to respawn on-world and how to escape the various prison cells that had been designated as respawn points.

The hedonistic attacking Players, on the other hand, did not. When they bought the big one, they would respawn in a dingy and dank prison cell fit for only for the long-since illegal punishment of solitary confinement, and they would be utterly clueless on how to get out. What helped the defenders was that they had, over the course of their in-game year of preparations, created certain signals that could be used to tell the handful of Players who acted as the wardens of the respawn points that they were both A) unable to get out for one reason or another and B) that they were one of the ‘good guys’ who should be let out.

As the skirmish dragged on, more and more of the War Suits on the field began to go down. One by one, the Imperial and Frankensuits alike were reduced to either shredded and/ or melted metal, static metal coffins with living pilots hiding and/ or trapped inside, or crippled machines desperately trying to squeeze out one last ‘fuck you’ before going down. Among all of them, there were three that were securing kill after kill with minimal damage taken.

One was the infamous Spider-Can, formerly known as Franken II. The moniker had stuck like some kind of industrial-strength super adhesive, and Thomas was all-too thrilled to use the dopey name as a way to keep people from realizing its full, dangerous potential. The thing skittered around the battlefield, pumping bullets and shells into everything that was hostile. The auto-turrets that were the machine’s ‘arms’ could and would actively aim and fire at anything worth their time, which left Thomas to pilot his jump-capable screaming metal deathtrap like a hormone-and-drug-addled teenager on a joyride with their friends in a high-end sports car.

Occasionally, the killer can would manage to intercede in another ‘duel’ between War Suits and get in a cheeky strike with the nasty shearing/ gripping claws on the ends of its feet, ripping smallish chunks off of the target before either scurrying away, jumping away or using the hover system to essentially scream off in another direction while peppering the newly made hole with 12.7mm bullets.

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When facing a foe head-on, the creepy machine would use the dish-like apparatus on the front to blind the enemy’s systems with a powerful blast of thermal, EM, directed sonic and visual energy. That little machine-made ‘Solar Flare’ set up more than a handful of War Suits and infantry alike to be cut down to size but melee and ranged attacks alike. While armored as poorly as possible to save weight, the fact that the machine was mobile and that Thomas’ Infantry Class was Bulwark made the odds of the War Suit or its pilot suffering a crippling blow a less likely prospect, and Thomas took full advantage of this.

While Thomas had scored the second-most kills, both of infantry and War Suits alike, Axton was the one who had the most in terms of War Suit kills. He had been focusing entirely on dealing with enemy War Suits, going out of his way to intercede in any fight he came across and doing all in his power to knock out as many of the Imperial mechs as he possibly could in as little time as possible. Neo Franken II, which would have been named ‘Franken II: The Frankensuit Strikes Back’ if Thomas’ suggestion had been taken, had been tearing apart every war machine in its sights.

Neo Franken II was a call-back to Franken I, just bigger, heavier, and more heavily armed and armored. Between the missile launcher that could shift from behind the back to up over the left shoulder, the oversized shearing claw for a left hand (which was also equipped with an unfolding series of metal panels that could act as an impromptu shield), the big sword held by a clamp over the right shoulder and the standard hidden chest-mounted guns and missiles, Neo Franken II was a beast and a half. Plus, just like the original that it had been based on; Neo Franken II was fast as fuck. It was deceptively speedy for its size and weight, and all that mass could be obscenely destructive if directed in the right places.

Axton made a habit of holding back his Suit’s ranged power and saving as much ammo as he could. He knew deep within his heart of hearts that he would need all of that dakka for what he felt was an inevitable showdown with his old employer, so keeping his usage of his guns and missiles to a bare minimum was, in his eyes, the correct course of action. Plus, he had not really needed to use his guns and missiles during this fight. The hedonistic and degenerate Players that had supported the Andromedan Empire were… well they were sub-par, to put it mildly.

Certainly, their armor was tougher, and their weapons were stronger than the vast majority of the Suits on his side, but what could be expected from things made with the lowest grade materials when they are forced to face roughly standardized military equipment made for elites? Still the skills of the Players on his side had more than made up for the difference in the quality of equipment, and they bought enough time for Axton to stab more than a few War Suits through the back or rip open their torsos with his Suit’s shearing claw and gut the pilot along with their mech.

All was going great, but the biggest and most desirable fish was still yet to be seen. Pushing his Suit’s loudspeakers to full, Axton screamed out his challenge to Donovan and waited amidst the destroyed husks of his foes for a response. The response came, and the first Heavy War Suit that anyone among Axton’s allies had seen, including Axton himself, emerged from one of the pods that had seemingly been shot down several in-game hours prior.