The diner shifted into a blur before the scenery transitioned back to what it was prior to Axton’s meeting with the GM. He was now back next to Franken and, as luck would have it, the space around him had once again begun to move forward at a reasonable pace. With the deal struck, Axton felt he now had enough leeway to go all-in with his designs. After all, the next battle would be captured on film and then cut and spliced into a cinematic. Would anyone else be considered to be in their right mind if they did not put on a decent show?

Franken was still light enough that a bit of extra weight here and there would not change the overall dynamic all that much and he was a bit worried that the barrel of the grenade machine gun that now took the place of Franken’s right forearm was a bit too vulnerable. A good hit to that and he would be sans a weapon, and that just wouldn’t do. And so, in true human fashion, he added a bit of reinforcement to the barrel and then stuck a decently sized blade underneath.

Said blade jutted out like a bayonet a bit, but unlike most bayonets it also ran down under the length of the barrel, forming a long, single-edged cutting surface. As if to add insult to any injury made by such a weapon, Axton added saw-like serrations to the oversized underslung super-knife. Anything that had that thing strike it that was weak enough would be suffering a far worse wound than normal, and that was just the way Axton liked it.

The Player continued to work through the night and into the next day, only stopping his work to eat once a quick meal was brought to him. He occasionally got updates from Daxter, who would come in and insist that he got in the damn robot and start fighting. From the ever-increasing undertone of concern in Daxter’s voice it was clear that, although shaken, Stebbs and his goons were slowly pushing the rebellion into a corner.

Axton, however, had a plan, and it was one he finally let Daxter in on. The man then grabbed a pickaxe took it upon himself to see if Axton spoke true, and a few minutes later the NPC returned and startled Axton with a massive bear-hug.

“You crazy bastard!” Daxter yelled as he lifted Axton into the air and then set him back down. “I don’t have the slightest idea how you knew that was there, but with this, we can actually do more than simply accept whatever punishment the Colonial Authority has in store for us! I never thought that any of us would leave this rock as anything other than slaves or as prisoners, but that ship can be our ticket to freedom! I’d kiss you if I didn’t think it would destroy our friendship!”

Axton dusted himself off and turned to Daxter.

“Well, it’s good you want to remain friends, because I was afraid your surprise hug meant that… you know…”

Daxter burst out laughing as a response before shaking his head.

“No. No, I don’t swing that way.”

“Neither do I.” Axton said before popping open Franken’s cockpit.

“It’s nearly 12 PM and you’re just now ready to fight?” Daxter inquired.

Axton hopped into the cockpit and sealed himself inside the War Suit. The machine took a few steps forward before planting its sword into the ground and giving a thumbs-up sign.

“Get as many as you can and as much as you can into the ship.” Said Axton as Franken’s speakers modulated his voice to sound deeper and gruffer. “I’ll go and cull the herd a bit and maybe deal with Stebbs if that rat bastard shows his head. You and yours just need to focus on getting that machine ready to fly at a moment’s notice.”

Franken pulled the sword from the ground and lowered its posture. The tank treads on the soles of the War Suit’s feet began to rapidly crawl forwards and the roughly ten-ton humanoid death machine sped off through the passageways that led from the safety of the camp to the outside area where the battle raged on.

…

The sound of blaster and kinetic fire echoed through the canyon, occasionally interrupted by the eruption of a shaped charge or a grenade. Slowly but surely the many people who had rejected the Mayor’s ‘kind’ offer of enslavement and torture were being pushed back, and it seemed that it would only be a matter of time before the last makeshift wall was broken down and Stebbs wrought his cruel and bloody vengeance. The PA system that once alerted the defenders to any threat was now silent save for the mad ramblings of the Mayor, and this did nothing to improve the rebels’ morale.

The Mayor was stationed far behind the encroaching lines of inbred security forces, but when he had shown up during the early hours his gold-plated War Suit instilled a mix of fear and anger in the rebels. All of the nearly 100% pure, 24-carat gold that covered every part of the ancient War Suit’s exterior was the result of men, women, and children being sold to the highest bidder and their own property being sold in the same way as well. Now they were about to meet a similar fate to those who had been ‘dealt with’ by Stebbs before, and the seeming inevitability of that fate was becoming tangible enough to nearly start a chain rout.

It was then, in that darkest of hours, that the sound of a War Suit’s treads crawling at high speed across the ground came from the rebels’ rear. There were only two reasons that such a sound was even coming from that direction to begin with, and at this point, the majority felt it was probably the worse of the two options. It was a near certainty that the Mayor had found a way around their lines and was now coming to hit their rear after dealing with the last refuge of their insurrection.

No-one turned their heads to face their coming doom. There was no way that they would show that monster any despair or fear. Those things may have been present on their faces, but they would not let that demon see them lose their will to continue. They were essentially all broken by this point, but the sound of two heavy machine guns firing at the same, their bullets whizzing overhead from their rear, time stirred some small ember of hope in them.

The noise made by the incoming War Suit grew louder and louder until it was just behind them, and then-!

A large, metal, humanoid frame a few meters tall sailed over their heads as the roar of the War Suit’s thrusters deafened the din of battle. A familiar yet slightly different machine landed in front of the beleaguered rebels, swatting a shaped charge out of the sky with its large, double-edged sword. The War Suit raised its right arm, the forearm of which had some kind of heavy weapon that had a large single-edged blade attached underneath that ran from the base of the gun to just beyond the tip of the barrel. And then, as the weapon vomited out a seemingly endless number of grenades at the Mayor’s thugs, there was a thunderous cry of joy from those who once thought themselves doomed to suffering and servitude.