Warmachine

Warmachine #1

Haines was completely insensible with rage. Held in the amniotic embrace of his control-cradle, his skull punctured with long needles, the Machine at his command shook the earth with each step and sent the enemy troops around it fleeing in terror. Those unlucky ones that failed to find cover were mown down as Haines swept the Machine's weaponry back and forth across them, blowing their bodies apart in a merciless stream of carnage.

 "Kill! Kill everything! Kill them all!" He bellowed inside his head, his body limp and lifeless inside the armoured cradle deep in the core of the rampaging Machine, his vocal chords having long since atrophied into uselessness. Every fiber of his being was on fire with the chemical stimulants being pumped through his veins; reactions and aggression pushed beyond the limits of human endurance to make him the best possible weapon of war he could be.

 Something fast and heavy thudded off the armour of his left weapon mount, staggering him sideways. A dud; one that would have easily torn him open had it detonated.

 Incensed at the audacity of such an attack Haines spun the Machine around far faster than would have seemed possible for so heavy a vehicle and instantly spotted the offending parties; glowing brightly in his sensors, lit up across all spectrums. The group of infantry – one hefting the heavy weapon responsible for firing the shell in the first place – panicked instantly upon seeing the Machine turn in their direction and started to flee, but far too slowly. Haines had already spun up the Particle Projector built into his right shoulder and with a deafening ripping noise it unleashed an all but invisible stream that instantly evaporated all of them and left a perfectly spherical hole in the window they had been hiding in. There wasn't even blood to mark their passing.

 Confident they had been dealt with Haines swung around again to scan for more targets. To his great frustration there seemed to be none and he roared incoherently into his cradle until his vision started to grow dim. Regaining a modicum of his composure he started to lope forward through the smashed interior of the erstwhile shopping centre he had been purging, actively scanning for anything that might still be alive.

 The faintest of signals bounced back to him from the upper level of the complex. Looking above him he saw a large gash in the floor over his head and with a grunt he propelled the Machine upwards, cracking tiles underneath him as he pushed off and shaking dust from the ceiling high above as he landed. The building creaked but he paid it no attention, so intent was he on the fresh selection of targets, quivering in terrors, that now dominated his vision.

 "Kill!" He shouted again, his non-responsive body reflexively swallowing another mouthful of the stagnant amniotic fluid he was floating in. Bringing his left arm to bear again he began discharging his anti-personnel weaponry, a hissing stream of flechettes lashing out. In an instant half of the gathered combatants burst apart, their bodies ceasing to exist in any meaningful way. The few survivors scattered; snapping of frantic and poorly aim return fire as they sought whatever cover was closest.

 "Run! Run and hide!" Haines screamed, chasing after the largest group. They took refuge in the deserted and unrecognizable husk of a shop. Haines had never been one for shopping before his internment into the Machine, and being hermetically sealed into a lethal weapon of war cut down on his ability to accurately recognize what it was he was actually charging into. Not that it mattered; the sheer ugly bulk of the Machine smashed through the plate-glass frontage and crushed the few sad, discarded displays that had been left behind.

 The fleeing enemy had holed up in the shop and had hunkered down behind whatever cover was available. This mattered not to Haines who, upon finding himself in such enclosed surroundings, immediately started smashing his way forward with his fist. Everything in his path was demolished and the plucky survivor who had been brave enough to stay closest to the entrance in the hopes of squeezing off a lucky shot was dashed against a wall and reduced to little more than a smear. Horrified, the others ran pell-mell to the back of the shop but found themselves trapped with nowhere to go as the Machine drew closer.