Franklin's hand went to his grenade belt. His mind slowed his actions.
"Not yet" he reminded himself. "The intel guys said this thing had a limited range, I gotta get closer"
An immense figure rose behind the crouching soldier. In the briefing, the C.O.s warned the Germans were working on a new project similar to the American effort, and now Pvt. James Franklin cowered at the reptilian feet of the Nazi's handy work. He leveled his M1 and fired until the stripper clip pinged. Thin trickles of green blood wandered from the pinholes on the creature's chest. The three ridges that crested the top of its head stiffened and it growled "Maaaa." It flexed and struck.
James flew through the air, skipped and landed in the smoking crater that was once his brother in arms. His left arm was broken. Pink bone struck a stark contrast against the olive drab of his uniform. His head swam, he could feel the foot falls of the thing coming to finish him off. His fingers ran over the unmistakable texture of the pineapple fragmentary grenades at his side.
"One, two, three." He counted in his head as he passed over each ring.
Finally he found what he was looking for, the smooth, almost mirror surface of the red and white ball, fourth on his grenade belt. He cocked his arm back. He hadn't pitched since high school. The irony that his last day of high school was less than a year ago was lost in the insanity of the beach.
Franklin threw the ball as hard as he could. It landed at the edge of the growing cloud of smoke just as the Nazi super monster strode through. The thin seam at the equator separating the red and white halves of the ball, split. A spastic beam of light arced several feet and struck the ground. When the beam had faded, there stood a rat, roughly a foot tall and bright yellow. Its tail was bent at odd right angles and look like a lightning bolt. An electric haze clung to red pouches on its cheek and small black serial number was tattooed near the base of its head.
The small rodent glanced back to the injured soldier and gave a sly smirk before turning to face the closing Axis beast.
The Nazi machine gunner scanned for targets among the chaos. A low glow in the smog drew his attention. He aimed down the sights towards the glow. As the German began to squeeze the trigger a pillar of lightning plummeted from the sky.
Franklin clutched his arm has he picked his way through the rubble of the German pillbox. The heavy machine gun was a twisted arc of slag and the soldier had been completely vaporized. The small yellow rat ran to the charred wreckage and admired his handy work.
"Pika." The mouse said.
"I'll say." Franklin responded with a grin.