“Careful there.” A hand was held up as Thomas tried to direct an improvised rescue effort. Axton was still stuck inside of Franken’s nearly completely broken husk, and the cockpit was dented and damaged in such a way that the only way that Axton could get out would be is if it was literally ripped off. However, that would undoubtedly put him at risk of being injured, if not killed, if it was done incorrectly, which was why Thomas was switching constantly between trying to communicate with Axton for an inside look at his situation and the ongoing effort to pull the cockpit open.

There was one last piece of metal holding the cockpit in place, but every attempt to get it off had resulted in another piece of metal flying off, some even flying off into the interior of the cockpit. Axton had taken a few cuts from a few of these, so now the handful of oversized metal hands and melee weapons were trying to, as gently as possible, lever the last bit of metal out of the way as best as they could. This was a slow effort, but it was one that was well and truly nearing its end.

With a final small noise, the last bit of metal keeping the cockpit from being safely removed fell off having been neatly severed by some very accurate and slow sawing with a giant sword. A quartet of metal hands then gripped the buckled cockpit and pulled slowly, eventually revealing a person inside who was rather worse for wear.

Axton was pissed, and not just at the cheating bastards who got him into this embarrassment of a situation. He was also angry at himself for allowing his fury, something he had kept bottled up and unseen for over a decade and a half at this point, to not just come out but also lead him into his current predicament.

Now he had no shortage of words to use to berate himself, and no shortage of animosity towards those damn cheating NPCs for their fuckery. Franken was a wreck at this point, and only a few bits and bobs could be salvaged from its husk, of which included the IFF tag and the stuff that Axton had created to render its backdoor access an impossibility.

He would need an entirely new War Suit and he would need it fast, otherwise he would be disqualified from the game within a game that was going on. More specifically, he needed one within 24 in-game hours, otherwise, well, he’d be considered to have been defeated. Given how he had fucked with the cheaters, he was sure that, if he had to leave, they would stop at nothing to simply kill him before he could make it to safety.

Not that death was something that overly bothered a Player like himself, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered more than the actual event itself.

Anyway, Axton was essentially up shit creek without a paddle, as there was no way in hell that he would be able to either salvage enough parts to build a replacement in time nor would he be able to even assemble one in time if he had the parts to do so. However, there was one lifeline that remained that he had some small glimmer of hope of exploiting.

As he lay in the nearly destroyed husk of Franken Mk 3, he looked up at the night sky of this dumb planet and asked a simple question of his friend.

“Thomas, can you get Sally and Daxter on the horn and ask them if they can send a ‘care package’?”

…

Sally and Daxter watched Axton rip and tear his way through the War Suits which had turned from fighting each other to fighting him with a mix of awe and concern. Axton was not fighting at his best, instead fighting more like a wild animal with some modern weapons at its disposal than a seasoned veteran of War Suit combat.

On the other hand, they were raking in the dough as he carved a swathe through the War Suits around him. However, their concerns only increased after a War Suit with an obviously dead pilot got up and tried to fight Axton and Franken as if there was nothing wrong.

Axton had been correct after all. Cheating was definitely going on, and it wasn’t like they could do much about it. Axton and Franken eventually got beaten up to badly to fight any longer, and that was when the pair of NPCs that had put themselves on Axton’s side felt their stomachs drop. The two Champions were about to kill him, not that such a thing would amount to much if it did happen, but Thomas and a few dozen Players came in and saved him at the final hour, which was a load off of everyone’s collective chests.

However, both Daxter and Sally knew exactly what needed to be done. Franken was obviously a wreck that could only be salvaged for scrap at this point, which meant that the ‘toys’ that Axton, Thomas, and Sally had been working on needed to be put together asap. The two of them, along with everyone on their ship, estimated that they had, at most, 24 hours after Axton freed from his metal coffin before he would be disqualified, and they estimated that they had only a few hours at most before he would be freed.

There was no god damn way in hell that they would let Axton be removed by these cheating bastards, and so they had already started the process of assembling another War Suit long before Axton asked for their assistance. Actually, their many hands did indeed make for light work, and Sally had, of course, had a hand in teaching more people onboard how to make custom War Sits.

With that being the case, their ‘care package’ as Axton had called it, was nearly finished only an hour after the request had been sent, and now all that remained was getting it to him, though that would be a bit of a hassle. They could send it to him, but they would need to fill out some paperwork before doing so.

After all, the authorities involved in this Battle Royale could have anyone cheating in this game, could they? It would ruin the fun and the challenge, after all!

Fucking hypocrites….