A call came down from the station high above the planet where the Battle Royale was taking place, finding the ear of the two cheaters who lay in wait inside a large sports arena deep in the ruined city. The content of that call was exactly what you would expect, listing where both of this story’s protagonists currently were and how they were faring.

Needless to say, this was, at least for the cheating NPCs, not good news. Axton and Thomas had torn through the remote-controlled husks with minimal effort, which only showed the flaws in the planning of those trying to defend their title.

As it turns out, War Suits perform much better when they are in peak fighting condition (meaning without serious structural damage) and when there isn’t a noticeable time delay between the controller sending a command and the machine acting upon it. Apparently, trying to pilot decently or heavily damaged War Suit from extreme range led to issues regarding combat ability.

Who knew?

Anyway, the pair of cheating bastards were now receiving a barrage of updates as their foes made quick work of their ‘meat’ shields, and neither of them were in a rather good mood at this point. They did, however, have a last ace to play before needing to face Axton and Thomas on their own, and while this definitely broke the rules, they were likely going to be dead fairly soon anyway once the current game ended.

With death a near certainty no matter whether they won or lost, the pair of NPCs gave the order, and a transport ship off near the edge of the space station’s zone of influence began to make its descent towards the surface. More bodies, along with more machines, would soon join the party, but the cheaters and those associated with them neglected to remember one crucial detail.

Their little racket had formerly been allowed by The Revelry, which, of course, had a vested interest in maintaining its power and control over anything it dug its claws into. And, with that connection to a Pirate Empire, there came the usual things that any major crime syndicate does to keep its pawns under its control and methods by which rebellious pawns can be… removed from the board in a manner that may or may not be an act of mass, potentially indiscriminate, violence.

…

Franken plunged one of its combat knives into the joint between its opponent’s right shoulder and the socket where the right arm was connected. Immediately, the arm went limp, but the husk merely tried to turn around and bitch slap Franken with its limp appendage.

Okay, technically it wasn’t actually ‘immediately’ due to the painful time delay between the empty War Suit sending a signal, the controller getting that signal, and that controller ordering its puppet to respond, which meant that by the time the noodly limb was beginning to move, Franken was already somewhere else.

As if to add insult to injury, Axton had Franken use its knives to cut the cables and mechanical muscle on the underside of the foe’s knees, and this sent the already damaged War Suit to the ground, rendering it a non-threat. Of course, while it now had no way of attacking him, Axton wasn’t about to leave this husk just lying around.

As it had been the last immediate threat in the area, Franken and its pilot now had free reign to do as they saw fit with the defeated, and Axton knew exactly what he wanted to do.

“Tom, please keep watch and alert me if anything goes sideways.”

Axton’s request fell on very receptive ears, and with his friend’s confirmation, Axton exited his War Suit and began to systematically tear the empty War Suits apart with a few power tools and some good old-fashioned human tenacity.

“Ooooh…” Axton let out a sound that anyone who understood the tone, pitch, and context would know was an expression of surprise and mirth. He looked into the cameras of one of his current mechanical autopsy victims and yanked a piece of highly valuable salvage from the interior of his target. “This will make a fine addition to my collection.”

As Thomas kept watch, Axton tore the fallen but still active machines apart with the precision of both a surgeon and a psychopathic serial killer, going to great lengths to avoid accidentally killing his victims’ power supply and cameras. He wanted those fuckers up in space to watch as he took their toys and made them his own, leaving them utterly powerless to do anything at all as their puppets were dismantled from the inside out.

“Hm,” Axton grunted as he tilted his head. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?” came the reply from his best friend.

“Well, by all rights, the power on this machine should have shut off by now.”

Axton brushed himself off as he circled his current ‘patient’. “I mean, there is so much juice flowing through this nearly shattered machine that by all rights it should cause an overload, which would shut the machine down.”

Thomas popped open Spider-Can’s cockpit and came over to the machine Axton was about to euthanize.

“Yeah, man.” He said as he pulled back a bit. “Besides, the thing is radiating enough heat that it should shut down from that alone.”

“And yet, it still lives.” Axton said as he rubbed his chin. He looked long and hard at the nearly destroyed husk in front of him before remarking in a sassy tone, “But not for much longer.”

Thomas looked at his comrade, who looked back and him. The pair made their way back into their War Suits and drove off, rounding a corner just as the previously mentioned near-destroyed War Suit went critical and exploded from the mix of thermal damage and a very heavily damaged engine.

The pair went off down through the destroyed streets, but something caught their attention as they made their way towards what they assumed would be the final, climactic battle of the Battle Royale.

“Contact! Incoming drop ship!” Thomas yelled as Spider-Can’s more powerful sensors alerted its pilot to the approaching transport.

“Then light it up! Give ‘em a warm welcome!”

Axton didn’t need to say that twice.