While the two cheating Champions would have loved for Axton and Thomas to make their way to their recently more fortified position, the two Players/ Outworlders had other things to do. This state-sized arena was a treasure trove of Dungeons, mob-heavy overworld zones and the occasional place where all sorts of useful stuff could be found, and Axton figured that, as time progressed, fewer and fewer people would be left to exploit this place to its fullest.

The place was big, but they had enough time to take a bit of a detour, challenging Dungeon after Dungeon and wiping overworld mobs from the map with brutally ruthless fervor. They had no idea when they would next be able to set foot here, so it was for the best that they take all the time they could to draw as much of the hidden goodies from this cheater’s paradise as they could.

It was also to the benefit of their education regarding different fighting styles that they delve deep into those side areas. Some mobs, despite being the exact same as the one next to them, would fight radically different compared to others of their own kind, which forced both Players to rapidly change their fighting styles on the fly.

Thomas was finally getting some use out of Spider-Can’s foot-mounted shearing claws, teaching its pilot that there were more ways to use those things besides melee and grappling the sides of structures and other things for support. Thomas was learning how to hold one or two dead or nearly dead beings in one or more claws while using the others to move around, which meant that he now could make a few improvised shields when needed.

Franken, on the other hand, was being tested in other ways by its Pilot and the environment around it. Axton had to learn fast how to switch from ranged to melee and back again, all while dodging ranged fire and melee attacks while also monitoring the world around him so that he didn’t accidentally back himself into a corner or trip over something.

The pair carved a bloody path through everything in front of them, leaving Dungeon after Dungeon devoid of any hostiles, as they racked up more and more Exp and Loot. And, to make things even better for their adventures, every so often a box would drop from the sky filled with all that they needed to keep going.

Ammo? Instant Repair Kits? Medipacks? Food? Drink? These boxes would contain either all or some of that stuff, and this constant influx of supplies kept the rampage of those two going on for that much longer.

Eventually, the pair decided to take a gamble and split up, one going to take down the other Dungeons and the second going out to wipe out the overworld mobs and their area bosses. This way they could not only cover more ground and gain Loot and Exp faster, but they could give themselves a more potent test of their own capabilities and hard-knock combat education.

While both of them could have gone either way, Axton’s War Suit was a bit more of a generalist than Thomas’ was, and it was more suitable for close-quarters combat and melee than Spider-Can was. This left the pair with a tough choice to make, but it was one that they agreed on rather quickly at Thomas’ own request.

Spider-Can was a ranged beast in this early part of the game’s life cycle, as it could easily kite opponents and find solid ground in places that other things just could not hope to reach easily. Tight confines and foes who had high ranged resistance were not its forte, which made it a bit of a danger to itself when inside an underground Dungeon, of which all that were here were.

Franken, on the other hand, needed to, more often than not, get in close and use its exceptional maneuverability and high versatility to win fights. Sure, its new toy gun could do some nasty damage at range, but its maximum effective range was only around one-third of that of a fixed mount version of itself.

Rather than the normal max range being around 3,250 at a decent elevation, Franken’s new toy could only lob a shell at most around 1k meters with any degree of accuracy. Plus, the fire rate was less than a regular autocannon, which made Franken’s new toy a lot less impressive than one might think.

With all of that in mind, the pair decided to split up to take on their own tasks in a way that could have been seen as dangerous and inefficient. Franken and its pilot would go after the overworld enemies and deal with that nonsense, while Spider-Can and its pilot would risk it all in an attempt to take down the Dungeons singlehandedly.

This was a gamble because both of them knew that while Franken would likely have less difficulty dealing with foes on either front, Spider-Can was a big, juicy target with its main body’s armor being wafer-thin. Thomas counted on his Avatar’s own durability to deal with any normal attack that managed to penetrate Spider-Can’s armor, and if a melee beast got its claws on Spider-Can’s main body, it would be game over for the mech and for Thomas, its pilot.

This would be a crucible, of sorts, and Thomas was throwing himself into it of his own accord. He had no idea if he would come out of it intact, let alone if he would be in shape enough to help against the two cheating Champions, but this test would either make or break him and his War Suit both.

With their targets set, the pair split up for the first time in quite a while, both men putting the pedal to the metal as they rushed to go and clear their appointed targets before they started to run out of time. Neither of them wanted to run the risk of losing to those cheaters due to time running out, but they also had to admit that they would be fools not to use the time that they had to push themselves to their limits and beyond.

They would let their foe wait, growing impatient and gradually more irritated as their fight failed to appear until both Players were ready for it. And when both Axton and Thomas were ready, they would strike, and bring ruin to those cheating bastards, once and for all.