Titan

As the desert sands swirled furiously outside, the Titan slept deep within its gaping cave. Gradually, the beast awakened, disturbed by its growling stomach wanting to be fed. Stretching its limbs, the giant Metal Head turned it gaze to the mouth of its cave. The sandstorm that had been ravaging the Wasteland for the past several days had decreased in strength from earlier that day. That meant the Titan could go out and hunt for food. It rose and started to the cave entrance. When it got outside the cave, the beast took a moment to shake off the last remnants of its sleep. It stood on its hind legs, stretched its forearms wide, and let out a deep guttural roar that would be heard at least a kilometer away. Standing several stories tall while erect, the beast took a moment to survey its surroundings. The sandstorm was still fairly strong, but a lull was coming on. The strength of the storm was no concern to the Titan; its armor plates and hide were more than thick enough to withstand the most brutal sandstorm that the Wasteland had to offer. The strength of the storm would, however, determine if there was prey to be caught. Humans, those lizards, and even smaller Metal Heads would be torn apart in a storm as strong as the one that had been going on over the past several days. But since the storm was breaking, food would be out.

The Titan decided to head in the direction of the ruined city and see what it could find there. It would probably find some lizards. They liked to nest in the crumbling buildings and hunt smaller rodents that lived there. There might be some humans out and about, too. The sandstorms in the Wasteland tended to uncover ancient Precursor artifacts from beneath the sands, and the humans were interested in collecting these trinkets for some reason. It didn’t matter to the Titan why the humans wanted the artifacts, though. They tasted good, and that was all that mattered. Besides, the Metal Heads were still largely at war with the humans, so getting rid of any that it found was part of the Titan’s job. But there were also those machines now. The machines that attacked everything regardless of whether it was human or Metal Head. The Titan didn’t understand why the machines acted so; as far as it knew, the Metal Heads had never done anything to these machines to bring their wrath upon them... They tasted good, though in a different way than the humans did.

As the sands continued to calm themselves, the Titan could see the old city in the distance. The storm had died down enough now that the beast was sure there would be lizards out and about. The scent of lizard soon confirmed the Titan’s belief. It began to approach the ruins as stealthily as a creature of its size could...

---

The leaper lizard awoke with a start to a sudden sound from outside. It jerked its head from side to side to see if any other members of its pack might have also been awakened by the sudden noise, but all the other lizards that were hiding in the shelter of the old structure were still asleep. The lizard dismissed the sound as something getting blown over by the winds outside. It was about to settle down to go back to sleep when a massive claw suddenly burst through the ceiling and slammed into the several of the sleeping reptiles. The first lizard let out a shriek of both surprise and alarm, and any sleeping lizards that hadn’t been crushed awoke with a panicked shriek. As the claw began to retract through the roof, the surviving lizards began to make for the hole in the wall that served as the entrance to their shelter. As the first lizard scrambled into the old street, it paused and looked up to see what had so suddenly disturbed its peaceful slumber. It found itself staring at a gaping tooth-filled maw that was rapidly descending upon it...

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As the Titan picked its head up from the ground with the lizard in its mouth, more of the small creatures swarmed out of the structure, shrieking cries of fear and warning as they went. Dropping its prey from its maw, the beast took note of the situation. It had already killed three of the leapers; two in the structure and the one it had just dropped. It decided it would stash any lizards it caught in the structure it had just invaded, then come back and collect them when it had caught enough to make a decent meal.

Within a few minutes of the Titan’s arrival in the old city, the group of lizards it had disturbed had spread throughout the ruined buildings and alerted other groups of lizards of its presence. Now leaper lizards were scampering all around the ruins as the giant Metal Head chased them down and caught them, slowly increasing its collection of dead or dying food. Much to the Titan’s dismay, the sandstorm was beginning to gain strength again. That meant the lizards would start taking refuge in the buildings from the storm again, and wouldn’t be out in the streets to be caught. Oh well. There were still some of the reptiles fleeing from the Titan in the open, so it decided to chase them down before returning to collect its kills.

---

Sarah Everheart glanced at the screen on her scanner. It showed the locations of several Precursor artifacts in the vicinity of its scan range. Sarah sighed. She would have liked to be able to retrieve all of the artifacts, but the storm that had uncovered them was picking back up, and the team of Wastelanders Sarah was out with would have to head back to Spargus City soon in order to avoid being caught in it. Well, she thought to herself, at least I should be able to get one of them. She began to head in the direction of the closest artifact.

“Everheart!” a voice shouted from behind her. “Where are you going?” Sarah turned to see her partner, an older Wastelander named Gage Zeykrost, walking toward her. “This storm’s getting worse again! We’ve got to head back to Spargus!”

“I know!” Sarah shouted back, but only because the wind was picking up and made it hard to hear clearly. “Scanner shows another artifact close by, though! I’m gonna pick it up before we head back!”

“Fine,” Gage replied. He was closer now, so he didn’t have to shout to be heard over the wind. “Just hurry it up. We don’t have a lot of time left.” Sarah nodded and looked back at her scanner. She started off in the direction of the nearest artifact, near the edge of the old city ruins. Gage followed her, continually sweeping the landscape for any sign of threats.

“Found it!” Sarah announced after a few minutes. Sure enough, there was the artifact, sticking out of the sand where the scanner said it would be. She quickly set to work uncovering the rest of it before the desert could claim it again. It was a strange device, tubular in shape with several knob-like things sticking out of it on one end. “Okay, let’s go!” she called out to Gage. Suddenly, a shriek from behind her drew her attention. Sarah immediately recognized the sound as that of a leaper lizard, but she turned around anyways.

“Just some lizards!” Gage shouted over the wind. Sure enough, there was a group of wild lizards running along the side of one of the old buildings, seeking shelter from the growing storm. Sarah was about to turn around to head back to her vehicle when something suddenly shot down the side of the building and slammed into the group of fleeing lizards. The sudden appearance of the object startled Sarah so much that she dropped the artifact she had just dug out of the sand. As she focused on the object, Sarah could make out what she thought were armored plates over a dark skin. Uh-oh... Sarah thought as she shifted her gaze up to where the object had come from...

“By the Precursors...” Sarah Everheart found herself staring at the biggest Metal Head that she had ever seen. The beast before her stood several stories tall; taller than any of the old buildings surrounding it. Aside from its size, there was something else about it that caught Sarah’s attention: the Skull Gem that was set in its head was blood red. Normally, Metal Heads had a green Skull Gem. The monster’s eyes were an identical red, and they pierced through the swirling sands in a way that Sarah thought the Metal Head was staring directly at her. As Sarah watched, the monster drew its arm up from the ground, dropping the corpses of several of the lizards it had just ambushed, and placed its gigantic claw on the roof of a nearby building. Then the beast threw its head back and let out a long, deep, guttural roar that sent chills up and down Sarah’s spine and shook her to the bone. Standing there paralyzed with fear, Sarah hardly noticed that Gage had started speaking into his radio to the rest of their team.

“Everheart! Don’t lose that artifact!” Gage shouted. Sarah snapped out of her shock and remembered that she had dropped the ancient device she had dug up. She quickly scooped it up again, then turned and ran back to where her team had left their vehicles. Gage followed close behind. They were the last two of their team to get into their vehicles. Sarah jumped into the driver seat of her vehicle, tossed the artifact she was carrying to the Wastelander sitting behind her, pulled her goggles over her eyes, hit the gas, and sped away in the direction of Spargus. She hoped that the giant Metal Head behind the group hadn’t noticed their presence...

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The Titan let out a howl of victory. It had just killed three leaper lizards with its last strike, and now it had collected enough food to take back to its lair. The beast paused momentarily as it detected a new scent in the air. Was that...? Yes, it was. Humans. Eagerly, the Titan looked around for the source of this new scent. There! Two of them, moving away from the Titan. But they were retreating, and there were most likely more of them where these two were going. A Metal Head as large as the Titan could easily take on a small group of humans, but it already had enough lizards to make a meal, so it decided to ignore the humans as it collected its prey.

Back at the structure where the Titan had first began its hunt, the beast gathered up the corpses of all the leaper lizards it had killed or badly wounded. It had more than a dozen in total; more than enough to make a meal. The beast gathered up the bodies in its giant claws and set off back through the desert to its cave.

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Upon returning to its cave, the Titan found a messenger from the Nest waiting for it. The messenger had brought news of what was happening with the Metal Head hordes throughout the Wasteland. Aside from news that the humans had destroyed a fledgling nest area a week ago, nothing was of great interest to the Titan. When the messenger had divulged all of the information it had, it burrowed into the sand to go deliver its news elsewhere.

After the Titan finished consuming the lizards it had caught, it went to the back of its cave, lay down, and slowly drifted off into sleep.