As soon as the Achievement popped up into his view Axton dropped the rifle and let the Level Ups roll over him. He was likely to be the first person in-game to pull such a feat off, although he had indeed done it in a way that was almost certainly unintended by the devs. Then again, he had to admit that he had not expected that the NPCs would actually intervene, let alone that they would not be interested in the bounty on his head. But to be fair, crossing a leader of a major in-game faction was not a very sound idea, especially for nameless grunts or low-level Players. And, of course, the NPCs who had tried to collect him had their Levels visible by Axton, so they were not on the level that the Revelry Admiral was.

Whether you could call it fortunate or unfortunate, there were still a number of these would-be bounty hunters left alive, and their fate was almost certainly set in stone. This dire circumstance of theirs was only made even direr when Admiral DiVeto himself entered the warehouse-sized mechanic bay with a look that could kill a god plastered on his face. His short, rather portly form walked up to the grunts who had betrayed him and as he looked down on them the air began to feel noticeably colder. He didn’t talk to them, nor did he verbally express his displeasure to them directly. Instead, he looked at one of the men who had stayed loyal and uttered a sentence that made the traitors panic and beg for mercy.

“Take them to Detroit.”

At this sentence, the few still living traitors began begging and pleading as though they were now consigned to a fate worse than eternal suffering in hell. Axton marveled at how this whole scene looked like something you would have expected from a B-Movie from over a century prior, but he kept his mouth shut regardless. As the hostile survivors were dragged off, Admiral DiVeto turned and had his visage and attitude shift instantly.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I will need to give my employees a bit more… incentive to not do such dumbass shit again. On another note, I see you’ve finished my…. Tank…”

As DiVeto’s eyes fell on what appeared to be merely a tank, his mood soured, and the air began to freeze again.

“Well, technically a tank can’t walk.” Sally said without missing a beat. The NPC obviously had bigger balls than either Player did, despite being a woman.

“It can walk?”

Sally nodded in response and gestured to Axton that he should show off the War Suit’s features. Axton felt like he now had a monumental weight on his shoulders, but Thomas patted his back and told him to just think of it like he was a salesman on an infomercial.

Axton pulled himself up and onto the machine, felt around the base of the turret/ torso, and pulled up. The torso opened up rather easily, and Axton turned around and sat himself inside of it, revealing the fine leather seating and amazing AC inside as he did so. He then pulled down on the opened torso, but not hard enough to completely shut himself in. Instead, the control panels were pulled down, revealing that the pilot could actually run the machine while the cockpit was still wide open, which was a feature that very, very few War Suits had.

“This machine,” Axton said in his best salesman voice, “may look only like a four-tracked tank right now, but this is merely its high-mobility/ high-traction mode. The track apparatuses are connected to a central point and, from that point the tracks can be individually shifted to take differing positions, allowing the pilot to make tighter turns and gain more stability when unleashing the full power of the mounted weapons.”

As Axton spoke, the four tracks began to shift, moving from the standard linear position you would expect from a tank to an ‘X’ shape and then moving individually to take different positions beyond that, such as a crescent and an ‘s’.

“However, a Tank is not a War Suit, as it has no legs. This is solved by having a metal and rubber ‘sheathe’ that can be shifted from a ‘waiting’ position to mostly cover each track and tread and allow the Suit to climb up onto places a normal tank would be unable to reach. Observe.”

Axton’s pitch continued as each track lifted up one at a time and had the ‘sheathe’ fold over it as the track distorted and took on a more ‘leg-like’ appearance, leaving only a small portion of the treads to touch the ground while a buffer of high-durability rubber acted as an extension to this ‘foot’.

“When in this position, you can actually walk, although the movement speed is much slower. Likewise, in a pinch, you can have the treads, which still are partially in contact with the ground, give the Suit an extra burst of speed. Although, to be honest, I would advise against doing that unless you absolutely need to, as it can and will cause excessive wear and tear on the track assembly.”

Axton lifted one of the ‘legs’ up and showed that the treads under the ‘sheathe’ could indeed keep moving. After stopping this, Axton then lowered the leg and had the War Suit lift itself up so that its underside was around a half meter above the ground. A bit of choreography later, and the War Suit was now over a meter and a half from having its underside against the ground, which was a surprise to all around save for those who had been working on it.

“Next, the Suit is equipped with a potent automatic IFF and multi-target engagement system and its turret can swivel 180 degrees in under two seconds. As a result, the pilot of this Suit can and should buckle in appropriately to avoid whiplash. Please take motion sickness medications ahead of time for safety and avoid using the swivel to such a degree unless it is needed. Parameters for the turret’s swivel speed can be set and reset by the pilot even while they are in action, and even while under fire.”

Axton didn’t show off the swivel to its full extent, though. He wasn’t the one this Suit was built for and had a very difficult time sitting in the seat as it was. Buckling in would be too much and trying to lock himself into the cockpit would be… uncomfortable. After all, the entire cockpit was designed specifically for Admiral DiVeto himself and was made to exact specifications. Right now, even without the cockpit fully down, Axton felt like he was a 10-year-old trying to squeeze himself into a toddler’s plastic car. It was… very cramped.

“Finally, we reach the weapons. The Suit carries two four-tube smart missile pods, each capable of using nearly any type of munition that can fit in them. Likewise, the pods can be modified to each carry a single large munition, but I would not recommend this as the guidance system and IFF targeting array are geared towards the smaller missiles. Thus, you would essentially be using dumbfire rockets if you modified the pods to each hold a single large rocket. The main weapon, however, is not the rocket launchers, but instead, the twin 30mm magnetically assisted autocannons mounted just underneath each of the rocket pods. These guns can use nearly any round put inside them, from flak to APFSDS to Acid to Incendiary. Despite their size, these guns do pack a hell of a punch due to the magnetic accelerators built into the barrels of each gun.”

Axton did not show off these weapons beyond having the ‘arms’ swivel up and down as the torso swiveled side to side. Axton continued his sales pitch for a while longer after that, rattling off feature after feature as the Admiral looked on, his attitude shifting from cold to warm as the tank/War Suit hybrid in front of him became more and more capable. This was to say nothing of the shock that the SuitMaker NPCs were experiencing. They were now internally kicking themselves as they realized that they had made a terrible series of mistakes, chief of which was refusing to learn from Axton himself.

After Axton finished his pitch, he lifted the control panels back up, got out of the cockpit, and then closed the hatch before jumping down and asking the Admiral the big question.

“So… Do you like your new toy?”