#he's more confused than anything but dw he'll get Grumpy™ in future works

[yeenybeanies]

INTRO: ROSALES

if you haven’t read @unicornofgt ’s gt mech suit series, go do that! it’s right here! it rocks! i was inspired to make my own big boye™ & shove him into this monster-filled apocalypse :> (you can see what he looks like here!) note! this is just fan-work & not part of the canon! i just think it’s a neat world & wanted to have some fun with it!

gt mech suits (ocs) | samson rosales & ricky salem

2,453 words

language, blood, and death warnings

thanks for reading! reblogs > likes!

“...The right genes…”

“...Needs people like this for…” 

“...Won’t wake up…”

***

What?

What was this? A dream?

Was that a voice? Why did it sound so far away? Why did everything feel so heavy? What was that pain? 

He could feel himself moving, but he wasn’t in control. 

These moments didn’t happen often––at least he didn’t think they did. It was hard to tell. All he could ever remember was the pain.

The voice was getting quieter. He couldn’t hold his focus. The fog always came back to swallow him.

***

“...Growth on schedule…”

“...Must continue with the…”

“...Had nothing left anyway…”

***

WHAM!

Consciousness came suddenly, like a high-speed collision with his brain. He breathed in sharply, gasping at the pain at the back of his head. And everywhere, really. But this time, the pain was different. It was worse. He could feel it more acutely. He could feel everything more acutely. There was darkness, but no fog. 

He felt his limbs move. He was… was he punching something? Clawing? Was he fighting? What the fuck was going on? Why couldn’t he see? 

Focus! 

What was his name? 

S… Something… Rosales! Right? That sounded right. Rosales.

His arm lifted, held straight out at shoulder level, and he heard a loud bang. Recoil jolted through his upper body, but he hardly moved. It felt like he was in a skin-tight cage, or some sort of restraining suit. The questions were piling up with no answers in sight. His heart pounded against his chest. His blood felt cold. He wanted to run, but he was not in control.

A shriek grated against his ears, drawing a displeased noise from deep within his chest. Weird. That wasn’t his voice, was it? It couldn’t be. 

Before he could ponder it further, something heavy slammed into Rosales’ face––or into whatever was covering his face. He growled out another noise, louder this time, and stumbled backwards. His back crashed into something hard behind him, his head following with the momentum. For just a moment, he saw stars swirling in the darkness, and then his body fell slack again. 

***

Wake up!

“No!” 

The force of his shout lurched Rosales forward. He gasped for air, sucking it in like he’d just been held underwater. 

He still couldn’t see. But he could move. Tentatively, Rosales flexed his fingers, rolled his ankles, shrugged his shoulders. He still felt heavy, still felt like he was wearing some sort of suit, but it wasn’t forcing his movements anymore. He was in control. He lifted his hands to his head and tried to touch his face, but found something solid in the way. A mask? A helmet? Fingertips brushed over the surface, pausing when they found a spot that gave way under his touch. A bit more pressure produced a grinding sound, and a feeling like something crumbling. 

“Kruger? You there? Kruger, come in.”

Rosales flinched. Whose voice was that? It sounded like it was coming from inside his head. He felt for the edges of the helmet and pulled. It didn’t budge at first, but another hard tug released his head with a few snaps and cracks of machinery. 

Fresh air stung his nose. The sunlight––the sunlight––it burned his eyes, forcing Rosales to squeeze them shut. Until they adjusted, he couldn’t stand the light for more than a few seconds while squinting. The bridge of his nose crinkled in displeasure. How long had it been since he’d seen light? How long was he unconscious? The last thing he could remember was…

...Was…

...Nothing. 

He couldn’t remember anything. Not a damn thing. 

“Kruger! What is your position? You still with us, buddy?”

The voice was coming from the helmet. The anxiety he’d felt before swelled up again, edging closer to panic. Rosales forced his eyes open, enduring the harsh sunlight through rapid blinks. He turned the helmet around in his hands. The face was largely featureless, save for a heavy crack in the middle. A red trickle leaked through it. Was that his? Rosales tested under his nostrils with a finger, finding it crusted with dried blood. The leak in the helmet was still wet. 

The panic was growing. 

With much apprehension, Rosales set the helmet down in his lap and pried the smashed seams of the faceplate open. Tucked into the tight space within was the source of the blood––an impossibly small, very human-looking body. It sported nasty wounds, like it had been crushed under whatever broke the faceplate. Rosales flinched, dropping the helmet to the ground. 

No. 

No way that was a human. It––he was so tiny! He couldn’t be more than a couple of inches tall! 

And he was… in the helmet… that Rosales had been wearing!

Rosales looked frantically to his surroundings. He couldn’t quite make sense of what he was seeing. Walls of rocks surrounded him, like he was in some sort of canyon, but it was far smaller than any canyon he’d ever seen. 

A weak groan floated up from the helmet, making Rosales flinch again. His head whipped around to look, eyes landing on the little man trying to crawl out. He was alive. He was still alive. 

“No…” Rosales felt his breaths getting shorter. His heart thudded against his rib cage like a rabid animal. He looked to the canyon again, then to his hands, and then back to the little man. 

“No!” 

Birds the size of fruit flies rose from over the canyon ridge in a startle. 

The little man keeled over onto his back, gasping, choking on the blood bubbling at his lips. He looked up at Rosales with equal parts confusion and terror. 

“No!” 

What the hell happened to him? Rosales scrambled away from the helmet and the little man. He struggled to get to his knees, one hand braced against the canyon wall for support. 

“Kruger!”

And he roared. 

***

The very molecules in the air shook. Ricky straightened up from her crouched position, brows furrowed. It was a noise unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Were it not for the fact that she could feel it reverberating through her chest, her lungs, her very bones, she would have thought that it was a malfunction in her hearing aids. 

But no. 

The birds rushing up from the canyon only further confirmed that, whatever it was, it was a very real sound. 

Ricky grabbed her satchel and started walking. She’d never heard any monster make a noise like that before.

***

Droplets of sweat ran down her skin, drenching her clothes, but Ricky did not stop walking until she reached the canyon ridge. She peered down to the dusty floor far below, and she grimaced. A fall from this high up would be fatal. 

Red caught her eye. Near the far canyon wall, a trail of what looked like blood dragged along the floor. At the end of the trail, partially obscured around a bend in the canyon, lay a fallen monster. From what she could see, it’s chest did not rise and fall with breath. Nasty mortal wounds left its body in tatters. It must have collapsed recently; carrion birds were only just starting to circle its corpse, and the blood pooling around it was still wet. 

As cool as a dead monster was, though––and Ricky did make a mental note to go check it out––she had to wonder what killed it. Was there a mech out here? The nearest Alliance city was a dozen or so miles away. It wasn’t impossible to think that a mech could be out this far, but why would it be? There was nothing but wasteland and monsters. Curiosity piqued, Ricky hiked her bag higher onto her shoulder and started in the opposite direction of the monster corpse. 

As the sun approached the horizon, gradually turning the sky from blue to pink, Ricky still trudged on with nothing but a blood trail to show for. She was drenched in sweat, and her water pouch was nearly empty. Her stubborn curiosity was at war with her survival instincts. The latter was starting to win.

If it was a mech that tore that monster up, then it must have moved on by now. 

But what if, her curiosity butted in, she found the spot where they duked it out? What if there were scraps of metal and useful materials she could scavenge? 

But was that worth dying of dehydration? 

Just think of how much the loot could get her at a trading post! 

If she could live to haul it out of here. 

Damn, maybe she should—

CLANK! 

A loud, metallic noise from within the canyon made Ricky flinch. 

CLANK! 

It sounded like something heavy clattering against the rocks. Reinvigorated, Ricky took off in a sprint towards the sound. She dropped to her knees, and then her belly, as she approached the ledge. She couldn’t see the source of the noise yet, but she could see its shadow. She almost couldn’t believe the shape of that shadow, though. It looked like a man—if a man was the size of a monster-fighting Alliance mech! The shadow appeared to be wrestling with itself, pulling at its arm until it wrenched a piece free and let it fall to the ground. 

CLANK! 

Ricky scooted closer to the ledge and peered over. Just below her, she saw a mess of black and grey hair, and broad shoulders clad in silver armor—armor that was being stripped off and discarded far below. The titan of a being’s head had to reach at least three quarters of the way up the canyon wall. If it—they?—lifted their arms, they could probably reach Ricky at the top. 

The armor was strange, though. Ricky leaned in further to try and get a better look. It looked suspiciously like…

Like mech armor. 

That couldn’t be right. The mechs were machines. They were giant weapons, marvels of engineering. 

Right?

CLANK! 

A piece of armor fell to the ground, loud and sparking. Ricky jumped at the sound, accidentally sending a small shower of rocks a-tumbling down. Her breath caught in her throat. She watched in horror as the rocks fell, some of them bouncing off of the gargantuan being’s shoulder. Their head turned, surprisingly––and startlingly––fast, first to the disturbance on their person, and then more slowly upwards. Ricky pushed herself away from the ledge, praying to whatever god would listen that she wasn’t spotted. 

The giant made a noise, low and deep, like a growl. It rattled Ricky’s bones, shook through her chest, and made her blood run cold. It was just like the noise she’d heard earlier––the one that drew her here.

Oh, fuck this. 

Ricky scrambled back and frantically got to her feet, ready to sprint away from the giant. She made it a few steps before skidding to a halt, her legs refusing to move further. In the distance loomed two towering figures, one on either side of the canyon. Ricky could feel slight tremors in the ground from their footsteps. 

Those were definitely mechs. And they were coming this way. 

Ricky turned on her heel and bolted back towards the edge. Something wasn’t right here. She didn’t know why she felt the need to, but she had to warn the big guy. She had a feeling that, if the Alliance mechs found him, it wouldn’t be good for him. 

“Hey!” She shouted, hands cupped around her mouth. The giant below flinched and twisted around, his head snapping up to face Ricky. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat. The giant’s features were striking, but their eyes––those eyes could stop a heart. They sent chills down Ricky’s spine. 

Focus!

She forced herself to speak again: “Alliance incoming!” She pointed to the oncoming metal titans. “We got mechs!” 

***

Rosales stared in bewilderment at the tiny woman. “Alliance”? “Mechs”? Those words sounded familiar, but he couldn’t piece together why. He followed where she was pointing, brows furrowed, and ended up doing a double take. The two distant titans––”mechs,” presumably––both sported the same restricting armor that he was currently pulling off of himself. 

Were there others locked inside those suits? Did they also have tiny humans in their heads? Maybe they could tell him what was going on. 

The woman started running away from the mechs. Rosales started walking towards them. 

“Woah––hey!” The woman’s footsteps halted abruptly. It gave him pause. “That’s probably not the way you want to go, big guy!” 

What? Why? Rosales turned his head in her direction, but didn’t look back at her fully. 

“I dunno if all the mechs have big ones inside of them, but, if they do, someone’s gone through a lot of effort to keep it a secret.” 

Rosales stared at the mechs. They didn’t seem to have spotted him yet. One of them took a knee and peered down into the canyon. A flock of birds flew up from the same spot.

“That’s probably the dead monster. That your handiwork?” 

“Monsters”? That sounded familiar too, but why? Why did this whole situation fill him with a sense of dread? 

Why couldn’t he remember anything? 

The crouching mech looked towards Rosales, and the other followed suit. His pulse spiked. Something––he isn’t sure what––compelled him to retreat from view. He rushed backwards and pressed his back to the canyon wall. His weight and his force sent a few rocks tumbling down over his shoulders. A shriek above him made his breath catch. Slowly he turned his head until he could see the woman in his peripherals, dangling from the rock face. She kicked her legs in the air, failing to get any purchase. Acting on impulse, Rosales raised his hand, fingers curled into a loose fist. He pushed his knuckles up under her feet until she could stand, and gently lifted her back up to the ledge. Before she scrambled onto solid ground, they locked eyes. 

“Go,” he said. It still felt weird to speak. Not only did his voice sound wrong, but it sounded––and felt––like he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

The woman nodded. She shot a final glance to the distant mechs. “Good luck, big guy.” Then she bolted. 

Rosales held his hand in place for a few seconds after she left. He listened to her retreated footsteps, and to the much heavier oncoming ones. Chatter buzzed in the air, unintelligible. The mechs, most likely. Rosales decided that he didn’t want them to get close enough for him to understand it. 

He pushed off of the wall, kept his stance low, and started to run. 

Pieces of his armor laid forgotten on the ground, next to a mound of freshly-churned earth. 

Unbeknownst to him, though, he did still have his arm cannon.