11:16 Local Time
Deep in the Equatorial Jungle
It was hot. The air seethed with the sound of trillions of insects all competing to be noticed, a background roar that crashed like the waves of an ocean, yet still seemed muted in the oppressive humidity. Already dark clouds built up in the sky, threatening a storm that would drown out even the most vocal insects. Ranuk lay prone, sweat trickling down his face. Beneath him, his specially modified Smilodon, purple and grey to blend in with the leaves and trunks of the native trees, lay on it’s belly, dormant, powered down. In his hands, a stripped down Cornerian Ion, modified for a hair trigger mechanism and a near-instant charge cycle.
He was hunting.
A call had gone out, as it did every year, for experienced hunters to cull the Snavurm swarms. Ranuk had signed up, same as every year. And same as every year, a batch of loud mouth pilots had arrived, boasting of how many snavurm they’d kill, declaring that their Oggun or Krampus would trample through the reptiles nests, driving them before their mechas with bursts of flame, or smashing apart whole packs with the splash from their missiles.
Amateurs.
Ranuk knew that most of them would be lucky to return home. Snavurm weren’t pack animals, they were solitary, and wasting an expensive missile on a single snavurm was a good way to be out of pocket by the end of the hunt. Using flame on them worked pretty good, out in the open. Once in the jungle though, well, at best the humidity or torrential rain would make the weapon pretty ineffectual, at worst, it’d set the surrounding jungle on fire and cook the fool pilot alive in his mecha. As for trampling them? Well, any experienced pilot that had spent time in the jungles knew that Snavurm are only ever thinking of one thing; Looking for a mate. And a big heat source, meant a big, healthy mate. A big, stomping mecha makes a lot of heat, and by the time a snavurm can tell the difference, they’re usually wound around your leg actuators tight enough to crush the synth-muscle.
No, Ranuk knew how to hunt Snavurm. Patience was key. So he waited, no hot running mecha to attract an amorous advance, no expensive missiles or suicidal flamethrowers, just a single low powered laser rifle and senses attuned to the surrounding jungle. He scanned the trees ahead of him, watching for the tell-tale darts of scales around the trunks and branches, listening for the creak of wood taking on the extra weight of a reptilian body, and keeping half an eye on the flocks of porcine Hambirds. His mind wandered, a few years ago he’d been hired to escort some egghead, a scientist from the Hegemony who’d come to study the impact of the Hambird on the local ecology.
Apparently, he believed the strange critter to be a product of genetic engineering, some mad scientists idea of a joke gone rogue and now infesting the jungles like a disease. Ranuk didn’t care too much, you could get some pretty good bacon off a Hambird. Behind him, draped from a branch hung 9 snavurm skins, cleaned and pristine, only the slight scorch marks around where the heads were missing betraying their execution. Ranuk was hoping to get his tenth before the storm broke, no amount of patience would help him see through the downpour.
A couple of Hambirds suddenly shot out of the treeline, their shrill squeals piercing to the ears after hours of insect drone. Ranuk shifted the barrel of his rifle towards the tree the Hambirds had flown from, confident that they’d been spooked by his next kill. He soon spotted what he was looking for, the mottled green torso of a snavurm, wedged between the trunk and a branch, slowly moving downwards with the grace and control only a segmented spine could achieve.
It looked like a big one, maybe one of the breeding females. Ranuk moved the rifle to follow the body, down to where he judged the head to be, waiting for the perfect shot. Such a low powered rifle would likely only wound the beast if he hit anything but a head shot, and a charging berserk snavurm would cover the distance between them faster that either Ranuk could make it into the cockpit of his mecha, or the rifle would recharge for another shot. He didn’t fancy being eaten alive by a giant reptile. As he watched, the Snavurm tensed, its massive muscles bunched as it sensed something. Ranuk held his breath, ready to throw the rifle to one side and at least attempt to reach the safety of his cockpit. Suddenly, the giant reptile bolted, around the trunk and out of sight.
Ranuk cursed softly, maybe the creature had smelt him. He did his best to stay downwind, and attempted to mask his own scent with that of local plant-life, but Snavurm were notoriously sensitive. He sighed as he heard the first crack of thunder, seems he wasn’t going to get his tenth today after all. A second thunderous crack made him pause, then a third. They were strange, almost too.... regular. He turned to look at the clouds, and saw no lightning. Instead he saw something terrifying.
Something massive was making its way through the jungle, bending the trees in its path. As he watched, a massive tree, easily 30 feet across, snapped with a sound like an Ursa Strike being fired. Ranuk was frozen in place, in the years he’d hunted these jungles he’d never even heard anything so large, and here it was coming straight towards him. Closer and closer it crashed, Ranuks heart thundering in panic, until suddenly a massive clawed foot slams down no more than a few metres from his mecha. Gleaming red and orange in the afternoon sun, it’s big enough to have turned Ranuk into paste had it landed on him.
Craning His neck up, He sees something that terrifies him more than any monster. A terrible lizard, red skin glinting and eyes glowing. No flesh and blood monster this, its skin an unknown alloy, its eyes the sensors and lenses that allow it to see its prey through all spectrum's of light. An Ignis. As it moves past, Ranuk spots an emblem on its flank; A piper, on a blue and yellow dag. It lets out an earth shaking roar as it ploughs its way through the trees, it’s back plates glowing fiercely with heat as it prepares for battle. Ranuk bolts for the safety of his cockpit, powering up to flee without even thinking of the skins he’s left behind. Hunting Snavurm can be done any day, for now he just needed to survive. The clans were mobilizing. War was coming again.Submitted by Merlin Salisbury#314012