With another bit of minor spot welding, the finishing touches were put in place. It was far from a bad job, but Axton still was not even remotely happy with what he had just finished making. Perhaps it was his inner perfectionist, but the system that he had established to avoid letting the hacked IFF tags ‘assume direct control’ over his and Thomas’ War Suits just wasn’t to his liking.

Still, he had a lot more time to work on this workaround than he had wanted. He had tried to get some of the other Players in on this, but they had either been extremely obstinate or had incorrectly assumed that he was the one who made the backdoor that the tags would exploit.

Ultimately he simply gave up on that path. If they suffered as a result, then that would be their own damn fault for not listening to him. Besides, among the Players that were enjoying the game (and some that were not), he knew that he had a degree of both fame and infamy.

He had been the one to pioneer the art of making custom kitbashed War Suits, and he had also been a Beta Player. It was also highly likely that he had received no small amount of bad press from both official and unofficial sources, especially after he essentially told the marketing and legal teams of the game’s owners to screw off, and of course after he had royally fucked up Donovan Blythe’s schemes.

On a side note, Axton was a bit concerned about what would happen with Donovan going forward. His old boss deserved everything that he and the other so-called ‘plebs’ had done to him, but at the end of all of that Donovan’s Player Avatar looked to be nearly inconsolably shell-shocked. Now, while it was true that the man was a bastard in nearly every sense of the word, Axton had left that place after he felt that he had indulged his desire for revenge for long enough.

Donovan, his cronies, and a number of ‘plebian’ Players remained on that world for a while longer, though. Axton had seen what his fellow ‘plebs’ had been willing to do to Donovan and his goons, and that was one of the reasons why he had bailed. He had no idea if that torture was still going on, or if Donovan’s suffering had finally come to an end.

Well, right now that didn’t matter. As much as that little jog down memory lane was interesting, right now all that mattered was making sure that the backdoor that the IFF tags provided would not work. And, despite the fact that he was not even remotely satisfied with the work that he had done, Axton had to admit that his additions to Franken and Spider-Can had, in fact, worked.

Well, sort of.

He had been unable to work around the tags being able to send the correct signal back to the main transmitter, wherever that was, so when these fuckers were manipulated the tags would immediately send back a signal stating that they were unable to hijack the Suit they were attached to. This was a major issue, but it was one that Axton hoped that he would eventually have more time to work with.

Thankfully, if he had indeed read the rules properly, he would have time during the Battle Royale down on the planet to tinker with his Suit, as well as Thomas’. At the very least, it appeared as though the rules did not account for Player Inventory, so at any rate for this game within a game he would be able to exploit just one of the major benefits that being a Player had at minimum.

He had finished ironing out most of the kinks by now, but he still wasn’t happy about the way the attachments looked. Sure, Franken and Spider-Can were crazy-looking enough, but these extra add-ons looked janky even for them. As a result, Axton swore up and down to himself that, given enough time, he would work to further improve the design of these two Suits.

Maybe he would find some time to try and miniaturize some of the tech, or maybe make some of his own. It couldn’t be that hard, after all. I mean, these games did tend to have crafting mechanics built into them, and he was absurdly lucky (most of the time).

Given enough time and materials, he was fairly certain that he could build a personal starship on his own, although that would be a task and half and require no small amount of information and education. That potential project would be a herculean undertaking of a different kind, as Axton was at least partially certain that it would not be nearly as simple as assembling a War Suit.

He was about to give his two creations a second, or rather, a fifth look over, but an announcement coming over the intercom prevented him from doing anything else aside from preparing for what was soon to come. The crackle of static and the whine of a third-rate loudspeaker turning on was like nails on a chalkboard, but that irritation lasted only a full two seconds before a crackling modulated voice began to speak, the whine from earlier still being present but much less intense.

“Attention, please. Attention, please. Will all competitors please make their way to their War Suits. Please check your pads for the location and number of your or your group’s drop pod. Please note that failure to use the proper assigned drop pod may or may not result in either disqualification or your Suit becoming an easy target when the Battle Royale is finally allowed to start in earnest. Please form an orderly queue and wait patiently for your number to be called. The drop will begin when either all drop pods are occupied with their assigned weight load or all willing competitors have entered their pods. Thank you and have a nice day.”

Well, it was time to Suit up and get ready for the fight ahead.

And, yes, he was waiting to use that pun for quite a while.