“….”

“Just a sec.”

“It’s been thirty minutes, man. Speed it up.”

“Almost done.”

“If I had known that this is why you wanted some paper and a pen I would have refused.” Grumbled the GM that went by the ‘name’ LW.

Axton didn’t pay LW any mind and continued to run the numbers and write out a series of paragraphs. Although, by this point, it was more of a medium-sized college paper. Axton was a smart cookie; he knew full well that if he didn’t take the fine print into account, he could very well be forced into situations he did not wish to be a part of. This was why he was doing all these calculations and writing so much. After all, he had his mother to thank for teaching him enough ‘Legalese’ to know a few traps when he saw them, and this contract was full of them. If he had simply signed the contract when he was presented with it, not only his current battles with Stebbs would be owned by the company.

This was why he was writing so much and doing calculations all the while. He was writing a counteroffer and he had to make damn sure that it was as airtight as he could reasonably make it. While the contract offered by the company would have paid him for all the stuff he had been doing and would be doing regarding the rebellion, it essentially would make him forfeit all monetary rights to any further cinematics and the like that could be made from anything else he did. That, as you might imagine, was most assuredly not in his best interest.

He wasn’t stupid enough to draft a counteroffer that would be so easily refused, however. The deal offered to him by the GM and his employers was heavily weighted in their interest, but while many would have demanded equal pay for any and all info taken from their play sessions, Axton was wise enough to realize that they didn’t have to pay him for them. They had all the right in the world to simply take the recordings and leave him with nothing, thus it was in his best interest to accept the offer, but with a few conditions tacked on top.

The counteroffer essentially had a single change to the terms it listed; the pay he was to be given would be much less than originally offered, but in exchange, he would be paid for any and all cinematics, trailers, and more made using his actions and those of his future companions. The initial payment would be just at 10% of what was offered in the original contract, but if he could prove himself to be an asset then he could make enough to outdo the initial offer several times over.

When Axton put the final touches on the counteroffer and handed it back to LW, the GM was obviously relieved. Axton had kept him here for what was easily four or five hours longer than what the GM had expected, and the man was obviously thrilled to no longer have to sit in the same spot. The GM held the document in his hands for a while and then passed the document back to Axton.

“Finance and Marketing accepted it and so did Legal. You do realize that this is still in our favor?”

“Oh, I know,” Axton replied as if stating something he expected would be obvious. “I would be one hell of an idiot to demand anything too heavily in my favor from you guys. This is your game, after all. The fact that you were offering anything instead of just taking made it clear that I can work with you. Now all I need to do is get into situations where you might want to use my play sessions as stuff for trailers, cinematics, and the like.”

“True, true.” LW said, nodding his scrambled face.

“Now, what exactly were you going to help save me from?”

The GM flinched. He obviously had expected Axton to forget about that.

“Well, there is a problem with your revolution on that colony. There are some powerful people who are coming, and none of them are friendly. All of them want to enslave the people of that colony and get you to work for them.”

Axton sighed. Of course the game wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. He also had a fair idea as to who was coming to destroy the colony.

“Andromedans?”

The GM nodded curtly and answered the same word, “Andromedans.”

Axton slumped into the seat.

“So, what can you do?”

“We can arrange for a few Revelry ships to drop in unannounced and clean house, but you would still need to get off-world as soon as you possibly can.”

“I’m not leaving those people behind.” Axton replied, his eyebrows lowering as he showed his affinity with the NPCs.

“Yeah, yeah. But they will either be enslaved or die. That much is inevitable.”

Axton now sat up straight in his seat and looked the GM dead in what should be his eyes.

“Then I’ll save as many as I can.”

“Are you sure? What if they don’t add anything? Those Beta Colonies are going to be completely reset and redon once the Beta ends, so nothing on them aside from the Players and their possessions will remain as they were. No one will be enslaved for long and no one on those planets will live that long. Are you really going to risk everything just to save some lines of code?”

Axton nodded. He really only cared about Daxter, and that only a platonic relationship, but he did want to save as many as he could from whatever fate awaited them, be it deletion or anything else.

“Then… maybe…”

The GM rubbed his chin and looked down as if pondering something.

“Just a moment. I’ll be right back.”

The GM vanished and then reappeared a half-second later.

“Okay, I talked it over with the other GMs and with the people back at corporate and they were, let’s say, ‘intrigued’ by your devotion to these NPCs. So, we have one final offer for you that, if you take it, could spare a number of them from erasure. However, it will mean that you will have a bounty from the Andromedan Empire on your head, with the same holding true for any survivors. You won’t be able to pay it off normally and we at the company will give you missions that you must complete to remove the bounty.”

Axton let the corner of his mouth rise in response.

“So, I save some people, escape the planet and have to work to remove a bounty on my head, all the while likely fighting for every moment and getting you guys a lot of footage to use.”

“Correct. You catch on fast.” LW said.

Axton didn’t even need to think about it. If he kept these NPCs alive it would only be yet another strike against Donovan Blythe and the other people who had tried to fuck him over. He was absolutely sure that Donovan would see Axton in the trailer and would try and hunt him down to collect the bounty on his head. Plus, if Donovan could capture one of the NPCs Axton rescued, he would lord it over him to no end. What better way to fuck with that bastard than to put what he wanted right in front of him and then yank it away?

Stebbs was just the main enemy of the tutorial, and what better way to fuck with the real big bad than by killing his pawn, taking his stuff, and then leading him on a wild goose chase before denying him what he craved? There was only one option, and Axton took it, not that he expected his new business partners to fully keep their word.

He may have signed a deal, but he figured that if there was one constant, it would be that Donovan would fuck things up somehow, or that the company would renege on its deal. Well, as long as he had fun and got to cash out, it didn't really matter either way.