A Titanfall Story

Time To Ruck Up!

Our final day of training has come, the day we learn to fight with the dominating force of the battlefield, the titan. We weren't going to be in a titan though for our first part of training, we would use the sim pods first. EM put us in a very different test than the others, we were learning on the fly. He put together a simulation called Frontier Defense, it was a horde mode putting four of us against his IMC AI units. Each of us were told we needed to fulfill a roll wishing this simulation. One tank, to hold the line and to defend the Harvester; two soldiers to move about and deal most of the damage; and a hit and runner to deal with immediate threats and move around the battlefield quickly. Anina, Truck, and I were in the first group along with a guy nicknamed Christmas. Most of the Militia Titans were stolen from the Imc, but the Militia have been able to build there own tech over the years. They developed the Vanguard Class Titan, built for survivability instead of expendability. I chose to run with the Legion Titan, an Ogre-class Titan armed with the Predator Cannon, a large 140 round mini-gun. Anina ran with the Ronin Titan, a Stryder-class Titan designed for close quarter combat armed with the Lead-wall, a 3 barreled shot gun with a 4 round magazine, and an arc sword. Truck ran with he Tone Titan, an Atlas-class Titan armed with the 40mm cannon, semi-auto Cannon with a 12 round magazine with tracer rounds, and armed with missile racks. Christmas ran with the Ion Titan, an Atlas-class Titan focused on power management and armed with the Splitter rifle, full-auto energy rifle that can have a single and triple shot option. We were spawned into the simulation in our selected Titans and waited to hear from EM.

"Lady and gentlemen, welcome to Frontier Defense, your objective is to defend the harvester and don't let it be destroyed. No retries will be given if you die. Last maggot alive will move on until that wave is complete once that wave is complete all pilots will respawn. Today you will be fighting on Forwardbase Kodai, industrial facility that is. O longer operable by the IMC thanks to Jack Cooper and BT-7274. Survive, destroy, win, best of luck."

And with the touch of a button EM had the scenery change to the industrial facility he spoke of. We all jumped into our Titans and prepped for battle.

"Alright lads, let's show EM what we're made of." I said.

"This will be a cake walk." Said Anina."

"Anina, Christmas head toward the middle, Truck cover left flank, Yell if you start getting overrun."

"Who put you in charge?" Asked Christmas.

"Trust me, this will increase our chances of winning."

"All right, starting in 3...2...1."

"Let's make some scrap."

I made my way toward the right flank and spun up my predator Cannon. Smoke cover was deployed on the right to lower our visibility. I waited, eager to lay down some fire, and our chance came. Hostile Titans were deployed along with grunt pods. They were making their way toward me guns ready. I called out to Truck."

"I've got bogeys on me but I'm blind. Truck I need a sonar pulse!"

Truck launched a pulse emitter near my position and the outline of the grunts came into view. I began laying down fire, making the grunts drop like flies. Gun smoke filled the air and blood and oil watered the ground. As I was laying down fire eliminating infantry, our true enemies approached. Scorch and Ion Titans were making their attack run on me. I activated my gun shield, and started firing on the hostile Titans. I unleashed some power shots and knocked them back, but despite my efforts I was being overrun. I continued to lay down fire and called out to Truck.

"Truck abandon position and assist me on right flank. Anina start circling behind right flank."

Truck began to move on my position and laid down suppressive fire. His partial wall was able to protect his Titan while he was firing shells and missiles at the hostile Titans. We continued to lay down lead as Anina circled behind. She got behind the Scorch and Ion Titans and began firing her Leadwall. The Titans turned around and began engaging her instead of the Harvester. She phased shifted away from fire and reloaded her Leadwall with a new magazine. She had them lined up and grabbed her sword, she swiped her sword along the ground creating an arc wave, stunning all of the Titans. She moved in closer with her sword to finish them off. One by one we whittled down EM pawns until nothing was left except for burned parts of Titans, and grunt carcasses. We cheered in victory thinking we had passed the test, but EM had different plans.