“How is the remodeling going?” Daxter asked as he approached Axton. It had been roughly a day and a half since the rebellion’s retreat from the colony, or what little was left of it. While the rebels were still licking their wounds, they all felt that they now had an actual shot at taking the compound. Or at least they would once Axton got Franken working to his desired specifications.

“Well, I’ve essentially given up on reestablishing full functionality to the arm but I was able to lock it in place and run a connection through it. The problem is that any time I send a signal through the lower arm it causes a feedback loop that results in the whole machine shorting out.”

Axton’s words did not give Daxter any kind of confidence. If Stebbs was to attack now…

“There is some good news.” Axton added, interjecting his words into Daxter’s anxiety.

“Oh? And that is?”

“Well…” Axton said as he pulled back the curtain that had kept his work from being seen. “I was able to avoid the feedback loop by removing the lower arm and replacing it with a ranged weapon. Thanks for the idea, by the way.”

Franken now was wielding the large sword in its left hand while the right lower arm and hand were replaced by a belt-fed automatic grenade launcher. Ove the larger mechanical apparatus that was the launcher, Axton had attached a two-layer frame of metal with an inner layer of cheap heat resistant ballistic weave between them. This made the grenade launcher look slightly bulkier, but it did not increase the weight by that much more.

Also, Axton had learned from the lesson that the A-Inc RPG had taught him, and Franken now had a final layer of improvised armor extending on metal pieces from the machine itself. This wire-frame armor was just a few millimeters above the regular armor, but it was hopefully enough to keep the A-Inc RPGs from doing too much damage. Add in that underneath that extra armor were a series of quilted pieces of cheap ballistic fibers and Franken now had a much higher chance of surviving those illegal shaped charges.

Daxter looked over Franken’s new toy and noticed something peculiar.

“Hey, I don’t mean to bug you, but what kind of grenades are you using?”

Axton scratched the back of his head and looked a bit ashamed.

“Well, the thing is, I couldn’t get enough grenades for the launcher that were HE or AP alone, plus this thing is belt-fed and I don’t have nearly enough room to add more boxes of ammo to it. So, I ultimately had to just use whatever I could get my hands on from my time in the scrap yard. Using this weapon may end up being a kind of RNG game, as there are smoke, AP, HE, Incendiary, Acid and even Tear Gas grenades in that belt and I have no idea which one will come up when.”

Daxter was a bit upset by this, but it was not like he could do anything about it.

“Well, please tell me you got that machine working. If it shorts out when we begin our last assault it will be all over for us.”

Franken’s pilot patted the roughly 3.8-meter-tall War Suit and then gave a thumbs up. Daxter took this as a sign that everything was fine and accepted that Axton and his War Suit would be ready for combat when the time came. The NPC advised the Player to get a good night’s sleep before the next day came, because if he knew Stebbs like he thought he did then it would not be long before the Mayor came calling.

…

In orbit above the Colony’s nearest moon, the Colonial Authority auditors waited nervously for the response from their headquarters to arrive. They had watched as the situation on the ground resulted in the current authority slaughtering those who sought to overthrow him and they had seen Stebbs’ goons using highly illegal weapons. They had fully expected that the rebels would have been killed to the last, but then the unexpected happened.

When the transport exploded there was much rejoicing both on the ground and in the Authority ship. The auditors had read the detailed report from the anonymous source regarding Stebbs’ cruelty and general behavior and now they had visual proof that he was at least connected to the Andromedan Empire, if not working for them in addition to the Authority. So, when the villain had his cavalry destroyed in such a spectacular fashion there was much to celebrate.

Still, their job was not nearly done. They had managed to access Stebbs’ personal computers due to Stebbs being a lazy bastard and not changing the login credentials. This gave them a treasure trove of data to use as further reasons for reinforcements to arrive and depose the current Mayor. Of course, they would still have to punish the leader of the rebellion, as the Authority could not be seen as being light on such things. It was a shame, but this ‘Daxter’ had to be tried for rebelling against the Colonial Authority’s elected official, even if said official was a monster who rightfully deserved it.

As the next day rose on the colony, the auditors finally got their response. It was most certainly not what they expected. They were ordered to abandon the audit and make way for the Andromedan Empire’s task force to come and ‘clean up the mess’. If there was any among them who had believed that the Empire was not in some way connected to Stebbs, this directive was enough to convince them otherwise. This meant there was only one option available to them.

They had to go higher.

…

Axton continued trying to work on things late into the in-game night, completely oblivious to the fact that everything around him had either seemingly stopped moving entirely or perhaps had slowed to a horrific crawl. Or, at least it seemed that way, but as a person approached the Player from behind, Axton swung around and held what he thought was a blaster pistol at face height. However, the hand that carried the gun was empty and Axton quickly realized this.

“Who the hell are you?! How did you do that?!”

Axton’s words were cut short as the in-game reality distorted around him and he suddenly found himself in a booth inside what looked to be an American Prohibition-era diner. As his vision finally settled, Axton saw a person in the opposite seat from him across the table. The person was... well, he could not identify their features in the slightest. Some powerful software was keeping their physical appearance from registering in his mind and this unnerved him greatly.

“What are you?” Axton muttered.

“I’m a person pretty high up the totem pole who just wants to talk to you about the... things... you’ve been doing. But, please, you can just call me ‘LW’.”