As Axton and Thomas were off and busy seeing what else this little area had to offer, a growing commotion was, well, growing in the engineering bay. It wasn’t just that jaws were dropping, but people literally had to be restrained as they saw things that, by all rights, should not be possible being transported in.

Either one of these War Suits was unique in its own way, and neither of them used any kind of standardized design. That was nothing new, though, as lately some rather interesting kitbashes were popping up here and there throughout the galaxy.

No, what set these two Suits apart from the others and what attracted so much attention was the fact that these two Suits were not just amazingly done kitbashes, but they were the first kitbashes. Likewise, they were known beyond merely being that, as well. Not many people here expected that they would ever get to lay eyes upon War Suits that not only had a massive bounty from the Andromedan Empire but also were the starting point from which all modern custom ‘kitbashed’ War Suits came from.

Plus, there was another reason beyond that that had people trying to get closer than they should. A certain female NPC was still tweaking the two Suits even as they were brought to the place where they would be dropped off, seemingly unaware of the fact that they, and she, were being moved at all.

Sally Grey, Axton’s first disciple when it came to making custom kit-bashed War Suits, was busy adding a few new bits and bobs to Franken and Spider-Can. To be more specific, she was already in the process of adding a component that would allow both Suits to identify each other even over long distances and through thick obscuring chemicals.

This was normally a part that was supposed to be added by the in-house team of engineers, all to make the matches ‘fair’. But they likely had no fucking idea how anything inside Franken and Spider-Can worked, and Sally was not about to let a bunch of noobs fuck up something like these War Suits out of sheer incompetence.

As a result, she had essentially forced them to give her the parts ahead of time and, while the Suits were being transported to the engineering bay, had already nearly finished installing the second one into Franken.

Of course, she didn’t go through with it all the way, mostly because she was sure that Axton would want to remove them and reinstall them himself. He no doubt had his own ideas as to where to put these tags, as well as his own ideas about what should be done with the tracking system they provided.

She was sure that Axton had the same idea, or rather, the same concern that she did, but he likely had a better way of confirming if these suspicions were based on truth or were just wild speculation and conspiratorial thinking. She had, therefore, attached the tags to the exterior of both Suits, which would give Axton a better chance of safely removing them, finding out if there was anything ‘funny’ about them, and then reattaching them along with a few extra modifications and parts in the event that their suspicions were confirmed.

That said, she was already thinking of some other gizmos and gadgets that could be useful later down the line. She had been privileged enough to watch one of these Battle Royale games before, and if the rules were what they were in the previous seasons, then she could very easily add a few ‘toys’ to the mix later on.

Of course, a few of those would have to be run by Axton, as his was the only Suit with hands, but she figured that he would accept most, if not all of her ideas. While the battle raged on the planet below, she could work her magic and show these other SuitMakers exactly what true talent was.

She eventually finished her work and looked around. Huh, she hadn’t expected that kind of a crowd… Well, it didn’t matter. Even if they broke the rules and tried to take Franken or Spider-Can apart, they likely wouldn’t learn all that much, nor would they be able to make anything decent on their own. Those looks in their eyes told her all she needed to know about them.

They lacked imagination, innovativeness, and a willingness to explore unconventional ideas. Hell, she was fairly sure that none, or at least only a handful of a handful of them had ever even attempted to make any self-made modifications beyond merely changing the paint job or swapping out a weapon here or there.

She swept her eyes across the gathering of War Suits, which only made her even more convinced that these people were, for the most part, utter morons with little to no ability to think outside the box. Of course, there were exceptions to the rule, though.

These exceptions, though, were always Outworlders, and only a few of their Suits looked even remotely worth her time or attention. Most of them were kitbashes that made Spider-Can look refined, and Sally could hardly imagine exactly how a number of them even could work.

The balance of many of them was way off, some even looking like they’d just fall over onto their sides or back or front when the rigging holding them in place was removed. As said before, though, there were exceptions to the rule.

A pair of War Suits stuck out to her more than any other. Obviously they were custom designs, but they were exceptionally balanced and looked amazing. Whether they would actually function well, though, was something she had no knowledge of.

There were a few other Suits that caught her eyes, as well. It looked like a few Outworlders had formed a Company, or as they occasionally referred to it as ‘a Guild’. On several Suits, most of the stock models and a few custom made, all bore a rather interesting color scheme as well as a pair of emblems on their exteriors.

One of the marks was a simple design that looked a bit like a flag, though that flag switched between several Suits, obviously separating them into two separate… camps? Factions? Parties? As for the design that they all shared in common, they bore a mark that had two, or rather, at least two characters on it.

Those characters were a letter ‘K’, and what Sally assumed was some kind of foreign character for something. Or maybe it was a compound character? Anyway, she set her eyes upwards at the banner hanging above those Suits, and she couldn’t understand what kind of reference, if any, that the Company name was making.

She would have to ask Axton and/ or Thomas what the fuck was wrong with so many Outworlders…..