Axton looked over at Thomas and nodded. This was the signal that they had established prior to the drop, and they both knew what to do. Despite slowing down by an absurd amount in an equally absurd amount of time, the drop pod was still likely to slam into the ground with enough force to either damage or outright destroy the legs and other components of at least a few War Suits inside of it.

Axton, however, had felt the rumblings of the pod, and having already seen the cheapness of the people arranging all of this, had already hatched the plan long before the both of them began their descent. The clamps held both Franken and Spider-Can in place, but they would likely be unable to stop the transmission of kinetic energy that would come from the drop pod impacting the ground.

As a result, the two Players turned on the systems that they hadn’t needed up till now. The thrusters on Franken’s legs, feet, skirt, and back began to roar to life, and the ones on Spider-Can were right behind. Axton shot a glance at the device that showed how close they were to reaching the ground and began to count down in a grim and audible voice.

“Ten… nine.. eight.. seven.. six.. five.. four.. three.. two.. one… NOW!”

At Axton’s command, both Suits pushed their thrusters to near the max. The clamps held them tightly, and that was a good thing, as the energy that was being put out by both Franken and Spider-Can’s thrusters would have sent them both into the ceiling.

Instead of that happening, though, they were held in place as the pod slammed into the ground, with both Axton and Thomas’ Suits’ ‘feet’ just barely able to avoid being forced to deal with the transfer of kinetic energy. The sickening crunch of metal being abused filled the interior of the pod, and Axton saw more than a few other War Suits nearly sink into their own legs due to the sudden and deadly landing.

Even though the interior of the pod was dark and lit by only a few dim red lights, Axton saw sparks fly from the joints of a few closer War Suits while a few others suffered even worse fates. It wasn’t even time to start the Battle Royale, and there were already more than a few War Suits and pilots essentially rendered unable to even attempt to compete.

Axton slightly shook his head from side to side. Those could have been Franken and Spider-Can if he hadn’t anticipated this. He doubted that some of the other pods didn’t have a better trip down, especially the one used by the reigning champions. This was just another way for them to game the system and further abuse their connections and, as a result, further swing the odds in their favor.

“Hey, should we just put them out of their misery?”

Thomas’ words reached Axton’s ears, but he simply shook his head.

“No. I don’t know about you, but that would be rather unsportsmanlike. Besides, we don’t know how many newly crippled War Suits have Players and how many have NPCs. I want to give them a chance to give up or run away. It just doesn’t sit right with me to end them over this bullshit that they couldn’t control.”

Thomas closed his eyes and nodded.

“Yeah, that would be like having a max-level player just wander into a starting zone and kill off every newbie that they saw. Not only would that be rude, but it would also be rather barbaric.”

Axton let out a short puff of air through his nose.

“Speaking from experience, are we?”

“You never know.”

The pair had already deactivated their thrusters. They had no need for them right now, as they had already finished making landfall and they were no longer at risk of suffering such unneeded damage to their Suits.

Now the both of them hung just above the floor of the drop pod, dangling from the magnetic clamps as the hissing sound filled the pod once again. Eventually, the hissing stopped, and the pod doors slowly opened. However, as you would expect from such a bumpy landing, the doors could not open all the way.

The clamps eventually disengaged, and those few Sits that had endured the landing began to power on their systems. Of course, Axton and Thomas had already done this and were now using their War Suits to pry open the door nearest to them.

The pair pushed and pulled again and again, eventually putting enough stress on the door’s connections to force the thing to fall away. This was met with some small amount of celebration, but this quickly soured as the people in the pod realized that they were not above ground.

Axton wasted no time after this, stomping out with Franken as Thomas and Spider-Can provided some fire support. Thankfully, no weapons needed to be discharged yet, and the coast appeared to be clear. However, as with any game worth its salt, the word ‘apparently’ was used properly.

There were, in fact, dangerous things in the underground section of wherever they were. The good thing was that they were in a safe zone, but the bad thing was that they were not just underground, but in a Dungeon.

This was, of course, a bad thing, but it was also a potentially good thing. If they were here, that meant they would get some potentially good loot, as well as being unable to be monitored nearly as well by the event organizers.

Axton looked back at the drop pod full of damaged and even crippled War Suits, their pilots trying to think of something that could be done to rectify their current situation.

“Fuckit,” Thomas remarked, which caught Axton’s ear. “Just do it, man. I know you want to.”

“Do what?” Axton asked, partially playing dumb.

“I’ll hold the line, so you go out and fix them up and give their Suits the same treatment as ours. We may have more leeway than we expected down here, so we can afford to take our time.”

Axton nodded to his friend and opened Franken’s cockpit, leaving his Suit and exposing himself to no small amount of danger. With cautious steps, he walked back into the drop pod and took out some of his tools and a few mechanical components. As people around him began to voice their concerns, Axton ignored them and continued to work.

Like a doctor in the middle of a warzone’s triage center, Axton paid no mind to anything anyone said and merely focused on his work. A few bits of work here and there would see these mechs in decent working order. They wouldn’t be perfectly repaired, but it would be enough for their pilots to realize that Axton was working to help them.

Seconds became minutes, which became hours, and still Axton worked, now with much less grumbling from the pilots of his ‘patients’. As he finished making the last additions to their Suits, Axton was met with the sound of gunfire. He had finished his work and looked behind his back to see Spider-Can unloading a near-endless deluge of machine gun and autocannon fire into a number of overly aggressive animals.

The machine was holding the line, but the bodies of the hostile mobs were gradually getting closer. Axton walked out of the drop pod and got back into Franken, having never even turned his mech off despite leaving it wide open to be stolen.

The two concealed guns on Franken’s chest were revealed, and Axton added yet more bullets to the storm of metal heading downrange. He didn’t expect those behind him to miss this opportunity, but he kind of didn’t care.

He expected them to either bail or just shoot him and Thomas in the back, but they did something different than those two options. The War Suits in the pod filed out like a well-oiled machine and began to add their own guns to the defense.

Axton smiled at this and stopped using Franken’s hidden machine guns, lifting his mech’s right hand up and over the machine’s right shoulder to grip the handle of his old reliable sword. The clamp holding that massive slab of sharpened metal in place released its grip and Axton directed his War Suit to charge headlong into the growing horde of nasty critters.