(Authors note: This story was inspired by a picture of Captain America, the first supersoldier, wearing MkV Mjolnir armour. All credit given to the artist GRAND Big Bird for the inspiration of this crossover. Composer out!)
Explosions were bursting all around him, bullets zipping overhead. There were the cries of the wounded: and the screams of the dying. Such subtle sounds, oh so terrible sounds. Within the grim crucible of battle, you often missed them. Yet when that terrible moment came, when there was a lull, when the bombs and bullets stopped pounding away. The wailing of those poor and stricken men was the most chilling sound of all. It broke your courage and chilled your soul, down to its very core. It is the most terrible noise a human being will ever hear.
Captain America had lost his shield. The mocking God's of war had thought it hilarious to take his most precious weapon from him. It was more than a weapon. It was his saviour, his eternal lifeline, and without it he would have died long ago. Would he be killed this day? Steven Rogers didn't think about such thoughts. He was a soldier, and a veteran of a hundred battles. He felt fear yes, but it was a distant fear. The kind of fear that every blooded man feels. His mind was cool, calm and fee of the anxieties that other men battled against.
He held his rifle tightly. It was his last lifeline, the only thing keeping himself from death during this terrible battle. And how terrible it was. The bombs, the bullets, the terrible screams of the wounded. Blood and viscera, the body parts of men no longer recognisable. All of it hellish. This was an experience that broke millions...but not Steven Rogers. He had been placed above such troubles. Nightmares occasionally plagued him, interrupting dreams and precious sleep. But he had been bred to be free from the fears of normal men. He felt like a freak at times. Why should he be able to deal with such things? Be able to deal with such things when other men couldn't?
Salvos blasted from his weapon. He strafed through the return fire that exploded all around, so loud it threatened to burst his ear drums. Thick black smoke hung about much of the battlefield, concealing enemies and the terrain before him, concealing vital battlefield information. Information he so vitally required to survive. The confusion of war was forcing him to rely on instinct alone.
Munitions blasted all around him…no, were blasting towards him! Forcing him to go to ground. Too late! The strange munitions, like daggers, burned him as they dug into his body. Agony shot through his left side as he tried to pull the shrapnel out to no avail. It was like thousands of fishing hooks were tugging away at his body when he tried. He hugged the ground, finding momentary shelter inside the foxhole. This battlefield was alien to him. He felt vulnerable, as he did in all wars. But here was different. He felt as if decades of experience were working against him. No different from a boy soldier once again.
Suddenly he spied movement out of the corner of his eye. A flicker in the atmosphere in front of him. He could make out a person. No! A monster! A shimmering ghost or shade. Legs, arms, body, helmet. Nothing like he had ever seen. Asgardian magic, alien technology, nothing prepared him for this. The enemy was like nothing he had ever seen. It wasn't human. It was colossal and muscular, worse than any Kree, worse than any Skrull, worse than any threat or terror he had ever faced. It was like something out of a horror movie!
He zeroed his rifle on his enemy. Would it be enough? He loosened the buckle on his combat knife. Could this simple blade really save him from death? War was hell, and hell was exactly where Captain America felt he was...