Bullets fly over my head. I try to hunch down in the meager trench but there's not
anywhere to go, aside from the direction I'm running in that is. Another burst of bullets narrowly
gives me a buzz cut. I fall to my feet and start to crawl on my belly. As dirt sprays over me from
the misses.
Where did Orcs get an MG42? I thought they were mechanically illiterate. Wouldn't they
use something Soviet instead? I hold my head as barrage after barrage of lead eats the air
above my head. What happened to the rest of my squad?"
But then there's something even louder in the distance. A rhythmic pounding that shakes
your bones even with how far away it is, like artillery shells landing. Whatever is making the
noise continues to hammer its way towards the trenches. I curl up and pray that if it is artillery
that it is a rolling barrage that misses me. And if it's some other kind of Rolling Thunder? I don't
want anything to do with whatever can make that much noise on its mere approach. I keep my
M1 carbine close in case that happens.
It stops, the vacuum left by its momentary pause sucking up even the noise of the
machine gun. Suddenly the silence is broken with an irrationally aggressive noise, one that
crushes any memory of the MG-42's intimidating gunfire. Crushing its head between its thighs.
"BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT"
There's yelling that is quickly smashed by another.
"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT"
Did my squad call in a walking A-10? Suddenly I feel something wet against my boot, I
turn to see my squad is lying dead in the trench with me. Everything feels far away and blurry.
But I'm hit with a painful whiplash of the ear drum breaking noise.
"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT."
I peek over the brim of the trench.
Standing in the middle of the field is a titanic soldier with a minigun. Hip firing it like a
machine gun. Because at their size? It's the size of a machine gun. The armor they wear is only
vaguely shaped like a bomb defusal vest, it's built into something like medieval armor. A moving,
glimmering mountain of huge armor plates. Yet somehow what should be a blob of metal and
padding is an attractive, sleek suit that while it looks weighty, is still as maneuverable as finely
shaped armor of a rampaging berserker. Power armor but the power comes from the wearer
moving its indescribable weight.
The orcs desperately try to kill the giant soldier. But the soldier shrugs off the machine
gun fire off without even flinching, underneath their humanless face shield they must be smiling.
You would feel insanely powerful too if you could tank a long, frantic burst of 8mm.
"BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT"
The orc gunner is torn apart from the chest up into a red viscera. The two orcs around
him desperately try to run. The soldier lifts a boot to readjust their stance. It falls like an artillery
shell. The fleeing orcs flinching and flailing as they run for cover from the hurricane of armor
piercing bullets.
"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT."
The soldier simply sweeps the fortification with unstoppable fiery tracers. Turning all of it
into a pile of rubble and dust, with two shades of red rising into the air. The huge soldier fires the
minigun without even losing their nerve at all with the gargantuan blast of the six barrels
operating at a wrist breaking RPM.
The minigun spins down with a skull piercing clicking that still makes your skin crawl with
its gently drowning clicks.
Out the corner of my eye an orc aims an anti material rifle from the pillbox opening of a
bunker. Their shot breaking the ammo belt feeding into the titan's minigun. The soldier is caught
off guard and looks down at the broken belt waving in the wind. There's a crack of the anti
material rifle firing and another crack from it slamming into the soldier's faceless helmet.
Twisting their head like they've taken a good punch in a bar fight.
It only serves to infuriate the soldier. They drop the minigun before angrily running
towards the bunker. All the kilograms of glittering metal on their shoulder shaking side to side to
rival a locomotive's unstoppable mass. Their footfalls pounding like thunder.
The soldier kicks the barrel of the anti material rifle, bending it upwards. They bring their
two fists down on the top of the bunker to collapse the roof before stepping in. Ignoring the
frantic fire of the orc's side arms that can only uselessly spark against their armor. I can't see
what quite happens but suddenly two halves of an orc fly out of the bunker. A huge fist is raised
and an orc screams from inside the bunker before there's a geyser of blood from where the orc
was. Then the side wall of the bunker is broken from the avalanche of the soldier tackling the
final orc through the wall, the bunker collapsing behind the two.
Make that the one actually, because the soldier stands prepared to plant their hands into
the rib cage of the orc to tear them in two along the spine, but the orc is only a red paste and
pink chunks against the armored chest of the soldier.
"Wow..." I mutter.
Somehow from across the smoking ruins of the juggernaut's rampage they heard me.
Their head instantly snaps to where I'm standing. The helmet's eye gouging horn pointing
directly at me. We awkwardly stare at each other for a moment. Neither of us are sure what to
do. But the juggernaut simply stands to their full height again to let me know what I have to do.
I start to run but trip over the bodies of my squad. The hammering of the soldier's artillery
footsteps echoing as they approach with an alarming speed. I look back and my jaw drops.
There is no way something that big can move that fast. Tectonic plates aren't meant to move at
that pace. I get up on my feet and run down the trenches, ignoring the idea of trying to hide in a
bunker I pass through. The juggernaut jumps into the trench and I can feel the impact of their
weight transfer its shake even this far down the line. This is what a skier must feel before they're
swallowed by an avalanche. I throw myself into a dugout and hold my M1 carbine ready, maybe
I can shoot through the slits in their face shield?
The soldier blasts through the bunker. Turning it to pebbles as their shoulders are too
broad and their head is too high to fit in it. The landslide rushes past me as they sprint down the
line. I feel like a doughboy who had successfully taken shelter from a storm of artillery. I sigh
and feel the stickiness of the sweat on my face. I bring my hand up to wipe it but suddenly a fist
punches through the top of the dugout. The fingers curling up against the roof.
Blinding sunlight spills in through the cracks in the roof. I drown in the flood of the light as
terror fills my veins. I look up at the juggernaut staring down at me, their head tilted to the side.