As Donovan had neglected to turn off his War Suit’s loudspeakers during the cat-and-mouse game that he and Axton had been engaged in, anyone with good enough hearing could tell that the man inside the Heavy War Suit was both panting heavily and raging uncontrollably. Axton had led the so-called ‘superior human’ along a winding path that occasionally looped back in upon itself, and each trap that was sprung along the way added another chink in the armor and ego of Donovan and his Suit.

The last stage of Axton’s scheme was about to be unleashed now that all of the remaining traps had been triggered. Donovan’s AE-201 ‘Dracotaur’ War Suit was practically a toaster in terms of heat with its pilot being the bread inside of it. Truthfully, if Axton had around ten more traps to use then Donovan’s Avatar would have died of thermal damage inside his own mech, cooked to death as the machine tried to disperse the built-up heat. While that would have been entertaining, Axton had already exhausted all of those kinds of things. Now was the time for a more… personal attack.

As the Dracotaur slowly crawled after Axton, the remaining heat that infused the mech began to slowly dissipate. The air around the War Suit shimmered like a mirage even as the dust and soil beneath the machine’s feet began to hiss with each step. Finally, Axton stopped his War Suit right back where the whole wild-goose chase had begun and directed his creation to spread its arms wide.

“And here we are, back where this whole thing began!” Axton exclaimed with a mix of pride and mocking humor in his voice. “Now that we’ve shown just how narrow your field of view is, let’s settle this like how you wanted to do so with me!”

Donovan’s War Suit had ceased moving and was now essentially locked up as the safeties tried to vent as much heat as possible without generating more. Not even the loudspeakers were active at this point, which meant that Donovan was now a sitting duck. To add insult to injury, Neo Franken II’s multi-tube rocket launcher shifted up from behind the left shoulder until it was over it. The rockets inside the boxy container spewed out, one after the other, slamming into Donovan’s Dracotaur and adding yet more fuel to the fire.

The rockets were nothing too potent, just densely packed high explosives, but the impact of the munition and the explosive wave emitted by those rockets caused some decent structural damage while also adding to the heat that Donny’s Suit was trying to lower. Once those rockets had been used, the hidden guns and the twin single-use guided missile launchers revealed themselves on Neo Franken II’s chest. They would not be used immediately, but they were revealed for a different reason beyond merely a show of force.

“Hey, dipshit.” Axton said as the clamp over Neo Franken II’s right shoulder opened and the sword held in it was grasped by the War Suit’s right hand. “Do you want to know something hilarious?”

Axton waited a few seconds until the loudspeakers on Donovan’s Suit crackled to life.

“What now?!”

“I would ask you to take a look on the internet, but I might as well tell you now.”

Axton could feel the joy building inside himself as he prepared to humiliate his foe eve further.

“I don’t have the means or want to stream my gameplay on the web, but there were and are many people here who do. This whole fight, from beginning to what will be its inevitable conclusion has been captured live by multiple people, and, from what I’ve been told via whispers, we have quite the audience watching us. Smile, dumbass. You’re on tv.”

“……no….. No…! No! NO!”

As Donovan became more erratic and unhinged, Axton pushed his Suit forward and maneuvered to slash across his foe’s left flank. The blade cut into the opposing Suit’s armor and tore up a few bits and pieces of machinery, but it wasn’t a critical blow. Wheeling around again, Axton’s Suit sliced the right rear leg of Donovan’s Dracotaur, cutting a decent few lines of inorganic pseudo-musculature and causing that leg to buckle slightly under the weight of the machine it was a part of. Neo Franken II then peeled away and unleashed a few tens of rounds from both of the heavy machine guns in its chest.

Some of those rounds struck less well-armored sections or flew through gaps in the opposition’s armor and did an unknown amount of damage, but Axton wasn’t stopping there. Coming back around just as Donovan regained the use of his machine, Axton opened the sheering claw that was Neo Franken II’s left hand and swiped across the Dracotaur’s torso. The claws cut deeper than one would expect, and an almost insignificant gap was made that a well-trained eye could see led straight into the mech’s cockpit. The hole was less than two millimeters wide, but it was still a hole that, if exploited, would potentially lead to Donovan’s death if the proper type of munition scored a direct hit.

Donovan’s War Suit swiped at Neo Franken II with its own claws, but the speed difference was much too great for the Heavy War Suit to match. Axton and his machine slipped out of the range of the Dracotaur’s talons and spat back a few rounds from its heavy machine guns in response. The dance of death continued for a while longer, with Axton and his Suit being able to keep out of reach when it mattered while dealing blow after blow without taking more than a few scratches in exchange.

As the damage to his War Suit mounted, Donovan became ever more agitated, and his loudspeakers spat out a seemingly endless ranting tirade filled with no small number of expletives. All this did was divert the pilot’s already dwindling attention and stamina, which in turn led to0 Axton and his own War Suit scoring an ever-growing number of hits. That, in turn, caused Donovan to rage even more, which led to him taking more hits, which... well, you get the idea.

Finally, after more than 30 in-game minutes of Axton toying with his prey, Donovan’s machine had been reduced to what was essentially just a barely mobile ornate metal coffin. The power that would normally be directed to other systems now had next to nowhere to go, leading to it being focused almost entirely on the life support systems that kept Donovan nice and alive. The only other systems that were still somewhat functional were the sensors and the loudspeakers, and that was what Axton was hoping for.

The Dracotaur was a mess covered in gashes and holes, but while some would have wanted to simply end the game then and there after a bit of extra gloating, Axton had a much, much better way of humiliating his old employer. He positioned his Suit in front of his foe but far enough away that what was to happen next would not damage him or his machine in the slightest aside from stray pieces of metal and machinery.

“Just end it….” Donovan growled, clearly having realized that he had been utterly beaten.

“I will.” Axton replied. “On my terms.”

“What do you-?”

Donovan watched as Neo Franken II lifted its right arm, holding the blade within it aloft and pointing the tip towards the heavens. At this sign, the remaining Players on Axton’s side, along with the remaining NPCs began to take position at the sides of Axton, forming a crescent armed with every weapon that the people making the crescent could carry. The surviving Frankensuits also gathered and leveled their weapons at Donovan and his immobile metal box. Axton’s face twisted into a massive shit-eating grin and Neo Franken II swiftly lowered the blade in tis hand until it pointed at Donovan dead-on.

And then, the crescent erupted with the light of over seven hundred guns of various types and sizes. It only took a half-second for Donovan’s mech to be reduced to twisted scrap, but the onslaught continued for much, much longer until the only remaining piece of Donovan’s War Suit and the only trace that he had even been there was a burning pile of shattered metal that looked like a giant angry green man had taken out all of his frustrations on it.

As the guns fell silent, Axton planted his Suit’s sword into the ground and let out a cry that signaled the end to that conflict.

“A WINNER IS US!”