Franken swung around the corner, lifting its right arm and unleashing the power of the weapon that currently replaced its forearm. The barrage was quick, with seven grenades being launched in under 10 seconds. As per the nature of the weapon, the shots were inaccurate at best and the bombs fell in the rough vicinity of Stebbs’ gold-plated eyesore.

The first two grenades seemed to be some form of either High Explosive or Fragmentation bombs, as they bloomed into frightful explosions when they made contact with the ground. The one after that was also not what Axton had wanted, and when it detonated it released a blinding flash of light and a loud sound, both of which would be pointless against a War Suit and its pilot.

The fourth grenade was a flop as well, as when it detonated it spewed a viscous, glue-like substance onto the area it landed on. Thankfully, the other three grenades were what Axton had desired, and began to spew smoke as they rolled around on the ground.

The smoke would render regular visual sensors nearly useless and force both pilots to rely on other systems. Axton had made perfectly sure to install such features in Franken, and it would only be a matter of moments before Axton would find out if Stebbs had done the same or was as cheap as ever and neglected such things.

As Axton flipped the sensors of his War Suit from purely ‘normal’ video to a mix of EM and Infrared, he caught sight of Stebbs and his machine rushing out of the growing cloud of smoke. He wasn’t trying to leave the makeshift arena, not just yet anyway, but he was trying to avoid the cloud of vision-obscuring material. This confirmed Axton’s suspicions that Stebbs would be cheap and refuse to install ‘frivolous’ features.

“What’s the matter, asshat?” Axton said mockingly over his War Suit’s loudspeakers. “Is a bit of smoke too much for you?”

“Damn it!” Stebbs replied. “Fight fair and square, you damn Outworlder!”

Axton chuckled and continued to mock his opponent. “Knowing you, I would expect that you would do the same if you could! And, in that situation, if I demanded a fair fight, you would have told me to suck it up!”

“Grrrah!” Stebbs growled in annoyance.

As the smoke drew closer to Stebbs and his refurbished antique, Axton and Franken rushed out from the cover of the fumes and grabbed the opposing War Suit with their one good hand, partially pinning the golden pile of trash against the wall before roughly tossing it into the growing cloud. As the gold-plated trash can tumbled into the cloud of smoke Axton gave another quick jab at Stebbs’ ego.

“Tell me; did I hit the nail on the head regarding your double-standard?”

Now surrounded by vision-obscuring compounds, Stebbs’ toy lifted its right arm and began to use the weapon placed within it. The light autocannon in the right arm opened fire, with a single round exiting the barrel every second. The shockwave that issued out from said autocannon was enough to push back the cloud of smoke just a bit each time, but that wasn’t the reason that Stebbs was emptying his gun so wildly.

Thanks to his growing anger and annoyance, combined with the tongue-lashing Axton had given him and the fact that he knew Axton was nearby by couldn’t see him, Stebbs had nearly lost all sense of calm. This led to him adopting the generally useless tactic of ‘Spray and Pray’ which, like one would expect, was doing absolutely nothing. Axton could see what direction Stebbs was facing and which way his gun was firing, so all he had to do was to keep Franken out of the firing arc and things would be fine.

After one minute and ten seconds of firing in every random direction save for straight down, the autocannon began to click as it used up its last shell. Stebbs cursed and pushed the thrusters on his machine to their limit, lifting the War Suit up and out of the slowly dissipating cloud of smoke and then moving outside the arena where he landed and drove off into the ruined colony.

“So, you wouldn’t hold to your word, like always!” Axton yelled over the loudspeakers as he and Franken moved to intercept Stebbs.

“I didn’t promise to stay in the arena, boy!” Stebbs yelled back as he rounded a corner and took a better position. The right weapon was empty, but the left one would never be. Just like Franken, Stebbs had a melee weapon prepared for the left hand, which, unlike Franken’s, was not a manipulator but instead was an oversized spiked ball. Said melee weapon was, just like the rest of the garish Suit, covered in gold, and if you were to peel that off the Morningstar would be quite a bit smaller. Truly, Stebbs was obsessed with money.

The tasteless antique raised its left arm and prepared to bring it down with all the force it could muster, but Axton did not come around the corner and into the alley. Stebbs waited for a while and then lowered his War Suit’s arm. Perhaps he needed to go out and find that coward himself.

However, before he could think on that any further, the brick wall behind him broke open and Franken rammed Stebbs’ mech from behind, sending it tumbling to the ground. As Stebbs tried to set the Suit back on its feet, Axton and Franken shot off into the still-burning ruins while moving backward, firing the grenade machine gun as they did so.

A few grenades wound up hitting Stebbs’ display of pure vanity, which resulted in them blasting off a few bits of gold plating that had been improperly attached. The mayor’s War Suit finally got to its feet and was about to leave the alley when Franken ripped by again and lobbed a few more grenades at it, this time hitting it straight on.

Again, the outdated hunk of antique junk was shaken and again Franken and Axton drove off before Stebbs could stabilize and retaliate. This happened a few more times before the final pass where Franken emptied the last few grenades it had into its foe. If anything, this now meant that both Axton and Stebbs were now on equal playing fields, at least if you didn’t count the two machine guns and two single-shot missile launchers hidden in Franken’s torso. From now on, it would mostly be a pure melee engagement, and unlike Axton, Stebbs lacked the experience with his own Suit to know how to use it properly in such a way.

It was time to see who was better in a close-up brawl, and despite the difference in experience, the outcome was far from set in stone.