Old Glory Chapter 5

The giant creature surged up the hillside like a nightmare given form, each of its steps thundering against the earth with such force that the hill itself seemed to flinch beneath its weight. It crossed the open ground in four massive strides, faster than any of them could have believed, a towering mass of muscle wrapped in pale, stretched flesh. Its body was a ruin of old wounds, stitched with puckered scars and bolted-on plates of ragged armor, the welds still black with burn. In it's hand, it gripped a cleaver forged for no sane purpose, a slab of sharpened iron carved into a meat cleaver, its edge trailing sparks as it bit into the ground.

Valkyrie-5 opened fire in unison, their darts tearing through the air in shrieking volleys. Impacts peppered its chest and shoulders, a hail of glowing entry wounds that bled slow and thick. The creature barely noticed. Its eyes locked on them with the hate of something ancient, and then the cleaver rose. The squad barely had time to react before the first swing came down with annihilating force. It hit the hilltop like a meteor, the ground cracking open from the force of it, flinging soil, rock, and screaming soldiers like toys scattered from a child's hand.

The monster kept moving. Its presence cast a suffocating shadow across the hilltop, a looming terror that stole breath and froze limbs. Even as they scrambled to react, even as Albrect shouted for them to flank and spread, the weight of the creature's fury was everywhere, felt in the quaking earth, heard in the rumble of its breath, and seen in the carnage left by every swing.

“Move! Surround it! Watch that damn blade!” Sergeant Albrect’s voice ripped through the squad’s comms, sharp and immediate. He brought his Mark 9 to shoulder and fired into the beast’s side without hesitation, his shots reflexive before his brain even finished processing the order. The rest of the team scrambled for position, flanking wide and fast in the swirling grit, moving with faux-trained precision, but it was little good against something like this.

All around the hill, the ratlings formed a tightening ring of flesh, bone, and jagged teeth, their malformed bodies hunched and twitching with barely contained hunger. They bayed and hissed in their guttural, slither-hiss tongue, a language more mimicry than speech, filled the air air with exaggerated crowing and wet, rattling clicks. It was a chorus of mockery, euphoric and reverent, as though they were watching a ritual slaughter rather than a battle. Their voices rose in waves of jeering delight, shouting obscene encouragements to the beast, their claws raking the air as they swayed and bounced in place.

Eyes glowed with fevered anticipation. Saliva dripped from open maws as they laughed and gibbered, pointing with crooked fingers at the soldiers being flung like dolls. The sound scraped across the squad’s nerves like broken glass on synthsteel, a laughter so gleeful and alien it felt less like cruelty and more like worship. They weren’t here to fight. Not yet. They were here to witness. To bask in the spectacle of men being broken. It was a stage, and Valkyrie-5 had been hurled onto it as unwilling actors in a savage play for the amusement of monsters.

The creature was impossibly fast, lunging and pivoting with a grace that mocked its bulk. Rail darts struck its body in tight clusters, scoring its skin and tearing bloody channels, but the monster did not slow. The metal plating bolted into its hide deflected much of the squad’s fire, the kinetic rounds barely pocking its armor. The Doberman drone held the left flank, its heavy suppression cannon hammering the beast’s chest and forcing it back a step. For a moment, the squad had hope. For a moment, they saw it stumble.

That moment ended when the creature locked eyes with the drone and slashed at it with almost casual disregard. It's lumbering swings were almost deceptive in how slow they seemed, and how fast they came, the sheer size of the monster more a hindrance than anything Valkyrie-5 were managing to do to it.

The Jaynes moved like shadows in sync, each instinctively reading the other's path. They flanked low, cutting toward the creature’s legs in parallel sweeps. Their darts sparked off the creature's knee plate, drawing its attention just long enough for Hotchkiss to close from the other side. The grenadier was too near to risk a launch; instead, he fired his carbine at full auto, rounds stitching up the monster’s flank. Powell was still mobile, but barely. An arrow protruded from his thigh, black-fletched and cruelly barbed, yet he dragged himself into a crouch, firing bursts that drove smaller ratlings back from the hill's rim. Each stomp of the creature’s feet made the ground quake, and with every thunderous step they stumbled.

Doggit’s shotgun boomed with each close-range blast. The tight spread took fist-sized chunks from the monster's side, tearing deep enough to show dark muscle and gristle, but the damage barely slowed it. The creature bled freely now, its wounds seeping heavy rivulets, but none were killing blows. None pierced deep enough to matter. Albrect kept the squad moving, orders snapping like whip cracks. He drove them to flank tighter, to keep the creature boxed, to keep it guessing. The comms mesh was holding, and for now, that coordination kept them breathing.

Then the hill shifted.

It was subtle at first. Just a trickle of pebbles from under Silph’s boot as she broke cover to reposition. She shouted as the earth fell away beneath her, catching the lip of a sinkhole with one arm. Marie reached her in time, dragging her back even as the hole yawned wider. Beneath the surface, something vast and hollow groaned. They had been fighting on a shell, a roof of some kind, that was now beginning to give.

The Doberman tried top reposition, dancing to the side, trying to get a better angle. The creature turned with terrifying precision, its eyes locking onto the drone as if only now recognizing it as a threat. With a sudden, contemptuous motion, it lashed out, the flat of its cleaver hammering into the Doberman’s reinforced chassis. The drone’s frame buckled on impact, armor plates crumpling like foil as it was launched through the air in a cartwheeling arc. It struck a jagged outcrop with bone-snapping force, the explosion of impact tearing it apart in a bloom of slag, torn metal, and sparking servos. One of its legs skittered across the rocks, twitching once before going still.

The squad watched in horror as their most powerful support asset was wiped away in a single blow, erased with the same ease a man might swat a fly. Their firepower advantage, their heavy suppression, their line of fallback, all gone. In the silence that followed, the monster turned back toward them with a slow, deliberate motion. Its eyes glinted with something deeper than malice. There was a promise in that look. A promise of pain yet to come.

Hotchkiss swore under his breath and slammed a grenade into the underbarrel launcher with trembling hands, his decision a split-second cry of desperation. “Danger close!” he barked, voice cracking as the others saw what he was doing, the blood in his ears drowning out Albrect's orders and Silph's demands, his course set. He stepped forward alone, braced low, sighted beneath the monster’s raised arm, and pulled the trigger.

The explosion hit like a thunderclap of light and fire, the pressure tearing the air apart. The creature's shoulder erupted in a spray of pulverized bone, shredded muscle, and twisted iron. Its entire upper limb was torn nearly clean from the socket, flung back in a ruin of twitching meat and armored plating. Wet chunks slapped across the rocks and shattered brush, spraying Valkyrie-5 with stinking blood that steamed in the cold air and reeked of rot and sour taint. Shards of bone sliced through the haze like jagged shrapnel, one of them ricocheting off Silph’s pauldron with a sharp metallic clang.

Hotchkiss took the brunt of the shockwave. It threw him backward like a ragdoll, his armor rupturing along the seams. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he hit the ground hard, gasping and choking, ribs cracked and helmet visor fractured. But he was still alive, somehow, some way, despite practically being right under the detonation. His ears still ringing, his breathing agony, but still there, and the taste of blood in his mouth was all the notice he needed as to how stupid that was, even as his HUD screamed warnings and alerts at him.

The monster staggered, howling with a fury that shook the hilltop. Hot, steaming blood poured from its ruined shoulder as it thrashed and reeled, slamming its cleaver into the ground again and again with mad, convulsive force. Each impact was a seismic hammerblow, splitting the earth in fresh fractures. Its screech was raw and wordless, the sound of a wounded god trying to tear reality apart in its pain. Chunks of stone cracked loose and tumbled, dirt cascaded like water down the fresh fissures, and the very air seemed to twist with it's pain.

The hill gave a final, juddering moan before it cracked wide beneath them. A thunderous roar split the sky as the earth opened its maw. The creature lunged forward in a blind, staggering fury—and disappeared, its massive body dropping like a stone into the abyss. Valkyrie-5 had no time to scream as the ground vanished beneath their boots, falling away as whatever supports held the mound of a hill up, sucking them down into the abyss.