Titanfall

Vek slammed his foot on the brakes the moment he saw the convoy ahead come to a sudden halt. The transport groaned, lurching violently as dust and ash kicked up around it. His fingers gripped the controls so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Why were they stopping?

His heart pounded. His breath hitched. His mind raced with possibilities—an ambush? Mines?

Then the vox crackled, and the Sergeant's voice came through, sharp but strained.

"—Emperor's blood, shit!" The sound of heavy breathing filled the channel, followed by the clatter of something being knocked over. "Command—fuck, no—Commissar's just given orders! There's a—"

A ragged breath. The Sergeant was shaking. He was shaking.

"—there's a full-blown skirmish at the bridge! Gathering there.... Cultist filth, traitor PDF, xenos, mutants, renegade Steel Legionnaires, and—"

A pause. A horrible pause.

"Titans."

Vek's bladder gave out.

A wet warmth spread through his fatigues, but he barely registered it. His pulse roared in his ears. His stomach twisted into knots. His fingers ached from gripping the dashboard.

Titans.

Holy. Throne.

The vox crackled again, but now the Sergeant's voice was shaking. Shaking.

"—H-heard it straight from the Commissar! Titans! Enemy Titans! By the Throne, they—they didn't say how many!" There was another sharp breath, a muffled curse. "They want us to hit them from behind. Behind. The front line's have Space Marines holding them, barely, and we're supposed to come in swinging like—like we're an actual regiment and not—!"

The transmission cut for a second, then came back, more panicked.

"—We've got nothing! Half these systems are falling apart! I don't even know how many rounds we have left, and the Commissar wants us to hit them from behind?! Against heretics, mutants, xenos—and TITANS?!"

A choked noise. A horrible, horrible choked noise.

Vek barely realized it came from himself.

Tears welled in his eyes. His chest tightened.

They were going to die.

They weren't soldiers. Not really. Factory workers. Miners. Workers in the manufactorums. They had been pressed into service, shoved into uniforms, handed lasguns and told to fight.

And now, against this?

The Sergeant was still talking, still unraveling.

"—I mean, what the fuck are we supposed to do?! Our Chimeras barely have fuel! We don't even have enough krak missiles to scratch a Knight, let alone a Titan! And the Commissar's barking orders like we're—like we're some goddamn penal death battalion! We are going to die!"

Another breath, another frantic, choking inhale.

"—But we have to go. We have to. It's orders. And if we disobey… the Commissars'll—"

He didn't finish. He didn't have to. Execution. Immediate, brutal, absolute. But what did it matter? They were dead anyway.

Vek let out a ragged breath. His entire body started trembling uncontrollably.

His home. Gone.

His family. Slaughtered.

His friends. Dead, or worse.

Everything he knew. Burned, defiled, erased.

He couldn't hold it in anymore.

A sob tore from his throat, his whole body convulsing as he slumped forward against the controls. Tears streamed down his face. His breath came in short, ragged gasps. His legs felt weak, his chest felt like it was caving in. He didn't want to die.

Not like this. Not in some Emperor-forsaken wasteland, thrown into a meat grinder against monster war machines that no human should ever have to fight.

He clutched at his helmet, his fingers digging into the metal as his mind spiraled.

'I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die.Not this hopelessly after all this. Why did I even leave the Hive?'

The vox was still alive with chatter. Orders, confirmations, battle plans. Vek didn't hear any of it. He was trapped in his own mind, drowning in terror.

A sharp smack landed against the side of Vek's helmet, snapping his head forward with a dull clang. The shock yanked him out of his spiraling panic, leaving him blinking in confusion, mouth still half-open from a sob that never fully formed.

He turned, barely comprehending— And saw the Slayer sitting there, still as a statue.

The towering Astartes hadn't even moved after the strike. It was effortless. Dismissive. As if the breakdown of a mere mortal wasn't even worth acknowledging beyond a single corrective blow.

Vek swallowed hard, shoulders shaking. Then the Slayer reached past him, pressing a massive gauntlet against the vox panel. The channel crackled, and then— A voice. A vibration in the air, a quantum hum that wasn't quite sound yet carried meaning nonetheless. A moment later, a machinic followed, calm and absolute.

"If the Slayer takes out these so-called Titans, will you be able to fight off the rest and cross the bridge?"

Vek stiffened. The vox line went silent. For a long, terrible moment, no one spoke. Then the Sergeant's voice returned, still ragged, still teetering on the edge of full-blown panic.

"W-WHAT?! Does he—does he have a weapon that can take out a Titan?!"

Another pulse of meaning. Another translation.

"The Slayer is the weapon."

A strangled noise came from the vox, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. The Sergeant wasn't convinced. Not even close.

"That's—that's insanity!" he spat, words tumbling out in a frantic rush. "Do you even know what a Titan is?! A god-machine! A walking fortress! The might of the Divine made manifest! No man, no Astartes, no single warrior—no matter how strong—can take one down alone! You don't understand!"

He was unraveling.

"They're temples of war! Bunkers wrapped in ceramite! Mountains of adamantium! Their void shields alone can tank orbital strikes, their weapons can level hives! The ground quakes under their steps! Their machine spirits are ancient, divine! They are the Throne's judgment, the Emperor's will made steel and fire! How—how can a single Astartes—how can a single anything stand against that?!"

His voice cracked. He was losing it again. Vek wasn't breathing. Sefirot, ever calm, translated Slayer's response.

"No matter how large Titans are—Slayer has killed bigger things. Things you can't imagine. Just present the location of skirmish or you are welcome to carry forth with your enemy assisted suicide."

Silence. Dead silence. Vek's stomach turned to ice. The vox clicked. The Sergeant didn't reply. He couldn't.

The vox was dead quiet. No one spoke. No one could speak. The weight of the statement hung in the stale, metallic air of the vehicle, suffocating in its finality.

Then—

A shuddering breath from the Sergeant.

"…F-Fuck it," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Fuck it! Nothing else we can do. We either sit here and wait to die, or we let the mad bastard try."

A beat of static. Then his voice, slightly more stable.

"The bridge is five klicks north, past the next ridge. Enemy forces are concentrated at the crossing. Titans are dug in just beyond. We don't know how many. Even one is too many."

Another pause.

"…But if he really can kill a Titan, then Throne help me, I'll follow the bastard into the Eye itself."

Sefirot translated. The Slayer had already moved. Without a word, without hesitation, he stepped past Vek, who barely managed to flinch out of the way. The interior groaned as his armored bulk made its way to the exit.

The transport's hatch hissed open.

Then, in one fluid motion, the Slayer vaulted out—climbing onto the armored carrier like a beast scaling a mountain. Metal shrieked under his weight.

A dull, ominous thunk echoed as he landed atop the massive hauler.

Vek craned his neck, barely processing what was happening. That transport— It was carrying a Baneblade. The moment the thought clicked, Slayer ripped the heavy-duty restraints apart with a single motion. Massive chains, thick as a man's torso, snapped like cheap twine.

The great super-heavy tank groaned, shifting under its own weight. Then, before Vek could even comprehend the sheer absurdity of it, Slayer dropped down, vanishing into the Baneblade's open hatch.

A moment of stillness.

Then—

A deep, throbbing roar filled the air as the Slayer injected quad-powered and the engines ignited. Smoke and dust billowed from the exhausts as the beast of a war machine rumbled to life, ancient mechanisms groaning in fury after being caged for so long.

The convoy shuddered.

Vek felt his breath hitch.

And then, with a deafening roar—

The Baneblade lurched forward, treads grinding against the transport bed, momentum building— And with an earth-shaking CRASH, it slammed down onto the wasteland below, landing with the force of an artillery barrage. Vek's mouth went dry. Before the dust even settled, the Baneblade surged ahead—charging straight for the battlefield ahead.

————————————

The wind carried the stench of rot, burning promethium, and dried blood. The bridge ahead, a towering ferrocrete structure, had seen centuries of war. Its cracked surface was stained with the remnants of countless battles. Beyond it, the enemy gathered. Thousands of red-armored shapes formed a vast tide, banners soaked in filth, weapons coated in blackened gore. Their war cries grew louder, a guttural roar that reverberated across the battlefield.

Then, they charged.

A flood of half-naked zealots sprinted forward, their bodies covered in scarred runes and fresh cuts. Many were malnourished, limping, their weapons barely functional. Some held autoguns that misfired even as they pulled the trigger. Some tripped over the uneven terrain, breaking ankles, getting trampled by their own comrades. Others fired too soon, bullets landing harmlessly in the dirt.

A dozen fired before entering range—their bullets landing nowhere, striking the dirt, ricocheting harmlessly off bridge fortifications.

Then, the first real shots rang out.

"Open fire! OPEN FIRE!"

A wall of lasfire erupted, bright-red streaks cutting through the charging mass.

Heads popped like overripe fruit.

Ribcages caved in from explosive force.

One man's torso disintegrated from a direct multilaser hit, his legs continuing to run two steps before collapsing.

Some Guardsmen fired too early, panicked. Others fumbled with their weapons, hands slick with sweat. A recruit dropped his magazine while reloading and scrambled to grab it—too late. A blood-crazed zealot slammed into him, driving a rusted dagger into his throat. The boy gurgled, clawing at the wound, eyes wide in disbelief as he collapsed.

A plasma gun overheated. The operator screamed as molten metal fused to his gauntlet, burning through flesh and bone. He collapsed, convulsing in agony.

The man screamed as he flailed, his body a walking inferno, flesh bubbling, eyes melting.

The smell of roasting human meat mixed with the acrid scent of burning fuel.

Still, the cultists pushed forward, scrambling over the mounds of their dead.

Some fired wildly into their own ranks, too frenzied to aim.

The Guardsman with a broken flammer screamed as he was engulfed in flames, thrashing wildly. His armor fused to his skin as he staggered forward before collapsing in a heap of smoldering flesh.

Another Guardsman panicked and threw a grenade too early—it bounced off a barricade and landed among friendly troops, detonating in a horrific spray of bone shards and burnt meat.

"Throne DAMN IT! Watch your throws!"

The trenches became a nightmare of smoke, screams, and gore.

The cultists climbed over their dead, undeterred by the slaughter. Some were too frenzied to aim, firing wildly into their own ranks. One lunatic wielding a chainsaw tripped on a corpse and was crushed under the boots of his own allies. A Guardsman lost his lasgun and grabbed a rock, smashing a cultist's skull in desperation. His knuckles shattered on impact, but he kept swinging, his mind too consumed by terror to feel the pain.

The first wave was broken. But the next was already coming. A deep, rhythmic sound echoed across the battlefield—war drums, heavier than any human could play.

Then came the Gorekarns. Not malnourished cultists. But Khorne Worshiping bipedal reptilian xenos. Their shields locked together in a moving wall of iron and death. Each warrior was taller, broader, and faster than the mortals before them, their armor adorned with skulls and flayed skin. The Basilisks fired. Explosions ripped through their ranks, turning whole squads into bloody mist. But the formation held. A Demolisher Cannon roared, vaporizing a dozen Gorekarn. Yet more filled their place without hesitation. Then Gorekarn Hellstorm Butcher Cannons opened fire.

Bolter-sized slugs punched through the trenches, tearing through cover and ripping men apart. Then the melee hit. The Gorekarn slammed into the trenches like an avalanche.

A Gorekarn Giant-Slayer impaled a guardsman sergeant with a chainspear, lifting him into the air before wrenching it sideways, tearing him in half. Entrails spilled onto the mud.

Space Wolves did not waste ammunition on cultists. They stood firm exactly for this moment, their bolters locked onto priority targets. A pack leader raised his gauntlet, signaling.

"Fire."

The air shook with the bark of bolt rounds. Explosive shells tore through xenos, severing limbs, rupturing torsos in crimson bursts. A leading Gorekarn raised a bloodstained icon—only for a bolt round to punch through his skull, detonating it like a ripe fruit.

But the xenos kept charging at them getting ever closer. A Guardsman's head was crushed between a Gorekarn's shield and a ferrocrete barricade, his skull splitting open like rotten fruit. After taking the rest in range with bolter fire a Space Wolf tackled a charging Gorekarn Berserker, rolling through the dirt as they clawed and bit at each other like wild animals. The berserker drove a boot knife into the Wolf's knee joint, he failed, and before he could have another try, lightning claws ripped through his armor and ribs.

A Thunderwolf's fangs locked around a Gorekarn's throat, shaking violently until the spine snapped. The trenches filled with dying screams.

One Guardsman slipped on blood-slick ground, falling just as a chainsword came down. His face caved inward, jaw hanging loose, teeth scattered across the mud. A heavy weapons team fired a missile launcher at point-blank range. The explosion tore through the enemy, but the backblast ripped through their own ranks, shrapnel embedding in flesh and armor.

The bridge defenses were crumbling. Then, the ground trembled. The air vibrated. Shadows loomed over the battlefield. Casting dark upon the orange light of the setting star beyond horizon. The 82 feet tall Warhound Titans had arrived. Enemy reinforcements had arrived

This battlefield was an open graveyard in the making—a charnel pit of fire, steel, and ruptured flesh.

Steel Legion guardsmen, barely trained, barely holding, were already breaking under the sheer apocalyptic pressure. Their lines were a tattered mess, officers screaming orders into failing vox-links as whole platoons vanished in bursts of lascannon fire and explosive ordnance.

Two of the Six Warhound Titans stalked the battlefield, towering metal avatars of Chaos, their Titan-grade weapons carving firestorms through the ranks. Inferno gun blasts turned entire squads into smoldering shadows, Titan bolt cannons ripped Chimeras and armored lines apart like wet parchment.

A single turbolaser shot from the leading Warhound cored through an entire regiment, leaving a molten trench where hundreds had once stood.

The Gorekarn and Cultists surged forward, bellowing in savage unity.

The xenos berserkers crashed into the Imperial lines like an unstoppable tide, their daemon-forged cleavers tearing apart flesh, armor, and bone in singular swings.

A Gorekarn warlord, clad in scavenged Astartes plate, barreled into a squad of guardsmen, his twin chain-glaives revving like hungry beasts. He split one in half from shoulder to groin, then used the still-screaming corpse as a battering ram to send the others sprawling.

Another Gorekarn—a towering brute wielding a blood-rusted maul— crushed a guardsman's head, then grabbed another by the throat, laughing as he squeezed until the body stopped twitching.

The Steel Legion was dying, and even the Space Wolves were finding themselves hard-pressed.

The Wolf Lord leading them, clad in runic armor, swung his frost axe into the gut of a Gorekarn Champion, the rune-etched blade freezing the beast's insides solid before he tore it free.

Bolter fire lit the field, but it was like shooting into a hurricane of bodies and carnage.

In the center of it all, the third Warhound Titan—the Jackal-class scout engine armed with Apocalypse missile launchers—stood as a god of war, its machine-spirit roaring in binary fury.

Every missile impact reshaped the battlefield, sending Imperial bodies flying in every direction, turning land into cratered wasteland. The very ground burned beneath its stride.

Then, from the horizon behind, a Baneblade came. Multiple Quad Damage sigils burning bright as a sun across it's hull.

[Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage! Quad Damage!..... ]

The first shot landed like a meteor, smashing into the Titan's knee joint, rupturing armor plating and sending a ripple of seismic force through the ground.

The second shot thundered into its torso, ripping apart its reinforced plating, exposing the tangle of sacred machine-flesh beneath.

The third shot sent it staggering backward, screaming in garbled machine-logic, its stabilizers struggling to compensate.

The final shot, supercharged beyond reason, hit with the force of an orbital lance strike. The Titan reeled, its entire body quaking from the raw impact.

But the Baneblade itself was now sliding dangerously forward, its own weight and momentum pushing it toward the abyss.

And then, Doom Slayer moved.

He launched himself from the tank as it slid, using its final forward lurch as a platform. His boots ignited mid-air, argent thrusters activating just long enough to add force to his descent.

And then—he dropped.

A single, devastating dropkick, aimed directly at the Warhound's exposed chest plate.

The impact was seismic.

The Warhound Titan lurched backward, armor buckling inward, servo joints screeching in protest.

Its stabilizers failed.

Its entire frame tilted.

And then—it fell.

The Warhound Titan plunged into the toxic river under the bridge, the sheer weight of its frame ripping apart as it smashed against jagged rock and collapsing debris.

Its machine-spirit wailed its last as the reactor detonated, sending a plume of fire and shrapnel into the sky.

For a single frozen moment, the battlefield went silent.

The Steel Legion survivors stared, stunned, barely believing what they had witnessed.

The pack of Space Wolves—battle-hardened Imperial Space Marines who had fought for centuries—stood momentarily still, their glowing eyes fixed on the firestorm where a god-machine once stood.

Even the Gorekarn hesitated, their battle-maddened brains momentarily registering that something impossible had just happened.

And there, standing in the wreckage at the edge, Doom Slayer rose.

His armor wreathed in soot and fire, his visor reflecting the battlefield before him.

His next prey was already chosen.