The strumming of a tropical instrument played out over tens of loudspeakers set up throughout the Mayor’s compound and the adjacent scrap yard. This strange sound was just barely enough to cause there to be a lull in the fighting, which was also just enough for a certain mismatched mech and its pilot to prepare for its grand entry. Whether you could call it fortunate or unfortunate, there was a… let’s call them an observer, watching all of what was to come go down. They were not exactly in the game, but as a rare non-machine GM they felt that they at least had the right to put an eye on who and what was causing so many events to pop off.

So, while the music started up and Axton got into position for a flashy dynamic entry, there were a group of people who were watching from a distance, both partially in-game and out.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked one, looking at another out of the corner of his eye.

“The music or the machine?” replied another, her arms crossed but tapping her feet along with the beat as the music burst into full.

“You mean, ‘the music, the machine or the man’, right? Never expected that this guy would be able to climb his way to this point. Fully expected to have to get involved, you know?”

“Thank E-Va for that.” Remarked a fourth as the host of devs, designers, programmers, and GMs watched as Axton and Franken carved their way through a bunch of NPCs like they were playing a more violent, gore-filled, and futuristic version of a ‘Warriors’ type game on Easy Mode.

“Yeah, but to be honest I do think we went a little hard on him. The amount that we ended up getting as a donation was laughably small, so maybe we could, you know, help a bit? Just so E-Va would not feel the need to get involved again.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right. Hell, we could barely pay seven of you guys a month’s salary on what little money was sent our way. What a gyp… Still, if the money wasn’t enough, the threats were…”

“Down with the bourgeoisie?”

“No.”

“Still, E-Va is under review, but I don’t think we need to break the contract just yet. That deal didn’t take E-Va into account, so let’s just pretend that nothing happened and let things sort themselves out. Wow, that’s a lot of blood.”

“Yep. Have to admit that the modeling software has outdone itself.”

“No, I mean that is a lot of blood. Like, too much blood. Jesus! How much did you guys turn up the blood on these NPCs?!”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist! I only reset that for this battle and for this Colony. Once things stabilize, the gore gets turned down.”

“But… think of the children!”

“Man, nobody thinks of the children for games like these. Besides, I’ve seen the newest Disney movie for ‘kids’ and it has enough gore to make a person from the 2000s wonder if they just stepped into a PG-13 movie at minimum. I swear, people are getting more accustomed to such things as time goes on….”

“And you have to admit; this will make for amazing material for the marketing team. Think about it; he was essentially a modern, real-life Tony Stark! Imprisoned in the middle of fuck-all nowhere, forced to build a robot for survival and escape, and just like the original he had aid from a rebel! Once this is over, get someone to give him a ring. He’ll almost certainly be thrilled to get some extra cash and some fame from this. Oh, yeah, for the record, what model of Suit is he using? Gonna need that for marketing and such.”

“Well, he isn’t using a single model.”

“What?”

“Somehow he managed to get a bunch of different parts from a bunch of different Suits to work together. And without E-Va’s help, at that! The thing is a Frankenstein’s monster, which I guess is why he named it ‘Franken’.”

“Holy cow…. Marketing is going to LOVE this guy!”

“Yeah, but more players are going to demand that we make that kind of thing easier. I can’t tell from the logs whether he made it by skill or by pure dumb luck, and that is what makes me nervous. If he made it by skill, then we have nothing to fear and can just adjust the difficulty as time goes on, if he managed to everything working together by luck…”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. It would mean we have no base to compare things to. Skill is something worth comparing any further updates to, but luck? No, there is no way that it would be luck. He has to have some skill in programming or maybe he actually managed to hack the game. Either way, we’ll need to look a little deeper into him and his history.”

“Yeah, but can we all just shut up for a moment and watch the carnage?”

“Popcorn, anyone?”

…

(Meanwhile, on a ship cruising towards the Chikamasawit Colony.)

“I hate calls like this.”

“We all do.”

“Still, the amount sent as a donation was by far the largest that has ever come out of that backwater shithole. If the claims are anywhere near true, we may have a chance to not only keep a colony from being reduced to a failure but also screw over the Empire as well. Those fuckers have been getting far too uppity now that their precious Outworlders are appearing. If they aren’t stopped…”

“Truly, it would be ‘Game Over’ for every free man, woman, and child in the galaxy. I have the sinking feeling that the Andromedan Empire will suffer an Outworlder coup in the future. It may not be soon but just think about it. They cannot be put down for good, they have powers beyond what normal men have, they can take shots from blaster rifles to their bare flesh and emerge mostly alive… And the fact that the Imperials don’t seem to realize just what they are playing with is all too concerning.”

“And, of course, if the claims are to be believed about Mayor Stebbs, he has already sold more than half of the colony’s populace to the Empire as slaves. Plus, he did start a civil war in the colony, even if it is small.”

The ship carrying the men and women who were here to audit the colony dropped out of FTL and saw a large PMC transport hanging above the planet with a single troop transport carrying a group of ‘security forces’ to the Colony. Based on the size of the transport and the fact that its energy emission showed that it had been out of FTL for at least a few days made the hairs on everyone’s necks stand up.

“Put in a call with the higher-ups.” Said the leader of the audit team. “We’re going to need a few more ships. Ones with guns, too. Big guns.”