Champions, Craftsmen, Campaigns and Catastrophes
Copyright© 2026 by FozzieBare
Chapter 3: It’s just an AX-1 Warmaster
<BiggxBee> Ha! Those credits of yours will be welcome! I’ll make sure to inscribe “This leg actuator was paid for by the inferior piloting skills of Fakee” on my next mech!
<Fakee> Whatever, ass.
<BiggxBee> Aw, you crying? Who’s next? Who’s the next one to fight me for stakes?
<BiggxBee> What, no one? You all suck.
<ThunderRoad> I’ll take that wager.
<BiggxBee> Oh, someone on this server still has the balls? Fine. What are we battling for, let’s make it fun, how about, say, 200K credits?
<ThunderRoad> Really? 200K? Amateur. I thought you wanted to play in the big leagues. How about 1 million, with an optional press for Double or Nothing?
That line caused chat to stutter like a needle scratching across a record. It’d take most of them the better part of a month to earn half that. Someone putting a million credits on a single Arena fight was unheard of. Add an automatic press for Double or Nothing, and the stakes became absurd.
This was almost worth putting up with BiggxBee’s flaming everyone.
Even with his impressive winning streak, he had only made maybe a third of that. Now someone was offering to raise the stakes to jaw dropping levels.
BiggxBee was proud of his skills, but he wasn’t foolish. He checked the ThunderRoad account on ArenaFights, a site devoted to tracking Arena fight records.
The account was quite old. Hmm. Just months after World of WarMachines launched, if he read it right.
When it came to Arena Fighting?
The account was a non-entity.
ThunderRoad had only six fights in the last year
Six.
Most of its time was spent on training courses.
Training courses? Seriously? What was next? “Press W to walk forward?”
Grandpa wants to show everyone old didn’t mean feeble, huh?
Retired. Feeble. Easy frickin money.
BiggxBee’s greed overwrote his caution.
<BiggxBee> Oh, grandpas pension check must have come in? Sure: Room #4125, if you got the credits, I’ll make sure to write “ThunderRoad donated his money” over the mech your credits will build me.
<ThunderRoad> I’m there, and I’ve already deposited my 2 million.
That led to another stunned silence in Arena chat. Then everyone scrambled for the Join Room interface, racing to Arena-4125.
Not only was this unknown putting up a million credits on a single fight, he already put up the Press, so if he lost twice, he’d be out TWO million?
This was something the chat wouldn’t miss. Many of the folks who had been targets of BiggxBee’s flames were the first ones in Arena room to watch, hoping somehow that ThunderRoad, whoever he was, would come in and shut this arrogant jerk up.
What they didn’t know is that amongst a very select group, another group of players with old accounts, dusted off their alternate accounts that they only used when they wanted to go incognito amongst the general game populace, and was looking forward to the battle to come, for a very different reason.
Because ThunderRoad was a character name with history. Distant history to most, but history the pros remembered. The Pro Chat had AyyEm: The history had ThunderRoad. And they both translated into the man.
Adrian Mercer.
Adrian logged into the Arena first, and after depositing the two million credits, which had been in his account for so long he wouldn’t be surprised if the credits had gathered dust.
He then ignored the much-diminished account balance and took the few seconds he had before BiggxBee deposited his credits to select his WarMAC.
His brain automatically skipped over the first two pages, filled from top to bottom with Assault Weight Class WarMACs he had built.
Instead, he went straight to the third page of the WarMAC selection screen. On this screen was only one WarMAC. It had earned the right to stand alone.
An AX-1 Warmaster.
“Hello, old friend”, Adrian murmured to himself. He resisted the urge to touch his monitor screen. Business first. Pleasantries later.
It was a medium-weight WarMAC, sitting comfortably between the lighter skirmishers and the lumbering heavyweights.
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