After seeing the letter from Central Command, Max headed straight for the mecha hangers to see what, if anything had been done to the Stalwart while he was away.
So far they haven't done much, only swapped the barrel of his Battle Cannon out for a regulation model with no blades welded to it. Even if Command had approved his modification of it, that wouldn't be surprising, since the old barrel had taken some battle damage over the course of their mission.
Nobody is currently working on his unit, so Max climbs the gantry and hops inside, powering up the Stalwart to check the functionality and optimize the battle Cannon for the new barrel. Everything looks fully functional, but as Max goes through the structure with his [Optimization] Skill, he notices that everything feels really sluggish.
