The hum of the five flamethrower pilot lights echoed off the damp concrete walls.
It was a low, hungry sound. The harsh red emergency lighting above the heavy steel elevator doors reflected sharply off the polished, intricately engraved steel of the Warlord sword in Nero's hand.
Marcus stared at his own weapon.
It had been ripped from his hands in the wreckage of the Maglev train in Bulgaria weeks ago. Now, a manic clone wearing an immaculate white suit held it like a toy.
"Three seconds, Warlord," Nero purred, his voice bouncing down the narrow, ten-foot-wide concrete walkway. "That's all the math gives you. Three seconds before you boil."
Marcus didn't have a tactical overlay. He didn't have JARVIS to calculate the spread of liquid fire in an enclosed space.
He didn't need one.
He was standing on a slick concrete ledge. To his right was a sheer drop into the freezing, pitch-black subterranean lake. To his left was a solid rock wall. Behind him was the newly activated water terminal, blocking their escape.
They were in a perfect, inescapable chokepoint.
Marcus was entirely unarmed, except for the rusted, dull combat knife gripped tightly in his burned left hand. Marcia had lost her shotgun in the drop. Lucilla was clutching a plastic datapad.
And Narcissus, the Iron Dog, was massive, heavy, and still radiating the freezing cold of the abyss.
Nero smiled. It was a wide, theatrical grin that didn't reach his manic eyes.
He took a slow step backward into the dark elevator shaft.
"Burn them," Nero commanded lightly, waving his free hand.
The five Burner clones didn't hesitate. They were sleek, heavily armored, and devoid of fear. They raised the heavy, industrial-grade flamethrower barrels in unison.
Marcus froze for a fraction of a second.
His brain instinctively waited for the gold wireframe to highlight a dodge trajectory. He waited for JARVIS to scream a warning in his ear.
Nothing happened. He was just a man staring down five barrels of liquid fire.
A heavy shoulder slammed violently into Marcus's chest.
Marcia tackled him sideways.
They hit the slick concrete hard, scraping their elbows and knees on the rough surface. Marcus scrambled backward on his hands and feet, dragging Lucilla by the collar of her coat.
The narrow corridor instantly filled with a solid, blinding wall of orange liquid fire.
The sheer wave of heat hit them like a physical punch. It illuminated the massive, dark cavern like a second sun. The damp concrete beneath their boots hissed as the water instantly vaporized into steam.
The Warlord's Warlord math had failed. But the General's discipline hadn't.
"Narcissus!" Marcia roared over the deafening whoosh of the flames. "Bulkhead!"
The Iron Dog didn't need to be told twice.
He stomped heavily to the front of the Vanguard, placing his massive, twelve-foot frame directly between the fleeing team and the wall of fire.
He crossed his thick, anchor-chain arms over his chest plate and planted his hydraulic legs.
The liquid fire washed over him.
It didn't melt his new battleship steel armor, but the sudden, violent shift from freezing lake water to two thousand degrees of napalm caused the thick metal plates to shriek and groan in protest.
Narcissus began to walk backward, slowly, deliberately, absorbing the absolute brunt of the inferno. His armor began to glow a dull, angry cherry-red once more.
"We can't fight fire with fists!" Marcia yelled, her scarred face illuminated by the bright orange glow reflecting off Narcissus's back. "We're trapped against the terminal!"
Marcus looked over his shoulder. She was right. The heavy glass console was twenty feet behind them. If they retreated any further, they would be cornered and cooked.
He looked at his rusted combat knife. He couldn't throw it through a wall of fire.
He looked to his right. The pitch-black subterranean lake sat fifty feet below them, perfectly still.
He looked up.
Running directly along the ceiling of the cavern, directly above the narrow concrete walkway where the Burner clones stood, were the massive, high-pressure industrial pipes.
The same pipes Lucilla had just unlocked. The same pipes currently pumping millions of gallons of crystal-clear drinking water to the Carrier at maximum pressure.
The Warlord's Warlord math wasn't just about guns and armor. It was about the battlefield.
Marcus shoved the combat knife into his belt.
"Narcissus! Stop!" Marcus roared, his voice tearing from his throat, cutting through the roar of the flames.
The giant stopped his slow retreat. He stood his ground, the fire washing over his glowing red shoulders.
"Look up!" Marcus pointed directly above the Burner clones.
Thirty feet down the walkway, directly above the advancing clones, a massive, rusted industrial valve-wheel sat bolted to the main overhead pipe.
"Rip it open!" Marcus commanded.
Narcissus let out a deep, mechanical roar that vibrated the concrete beneath their boots.
He ignored the wall of liquid fire washing over his chest. He didn't brace for impact.
He reached his massive, glowing-red iron hands straight up toward the low ceiling of the cavern.
The Burner clones saw the movement. They realized immediately what the giant was trying to do.
All five clones abruptly shifted their aim.
They stopped firing at Narcissus's thick chest plate and focused all five heavy flamethrowers directly onto the giant's exposed hydraulic joints.
The intense, concentrated heat hit the pistons in Narcissus's elbows and shoulders. The thick metal began to warp visibly. The hydraulic fluid inside the massive lines boiled, hissing violently as it vented into the air.
Narcissus groaned. A horrific, grinding sound of metal failing under extreme stress. His right arm shuddered, threatening to lock up permanently.
"Pull!" Marcus screamed, his Warlord iron refusing to let his brother fail.
Narcissus grabbed the massive, rusted valve-wheel on the ceiling pipe with both hands.
The metal of the wheel was thick, designed to be turned slowly by heavy machinery.
Narcissus didn't turn it.
He ripped it downward with every ounce of terrifying, two-ton Warlord strength in his body.
The heavy steel pipe snapped with a deafening, catastrophic CRACK that echoed through the entire subterranean cavern.
The rusted valve-wheel tore completely free of the mounting, taking a massive chunk of the high-pressure pipeline with it.
The pressure release was instantaneous.
A massive, pressurized geyser of millions of gallons of freezing, crystal-clear water exploded downward from the ceiling.
It didn't just spray. It slammed into the concrete walkway with the force of a solid concrete pillar.
It hit the five Burner clones dead center.
The sheer kinetic force of the water column knocked the heavily armored clones flat onto the slick concrete. Their heavy flamethrowers were instantly ripped from their hands, skittering across the wet floor toward the edge of the lake.
The freezing water hit the liquid fire.
The instantaneous hiss was deafening. It sounded like a thousand snakes screaming at once.
The fire died instantly.
The narrow concrete walkway was immediately engulfed in thick, blinding, boiling white steam.
The temperature in the corridor plummeted from two thousand degrees to a freezing, damp chill in less than three seconds.
Visibility dropped to absolute zero.
Marcus couldn't see Narcissus. He couldn't see Marcia. He couldn't see his own hands in front of his face.
The Warlord's Warlord math had worked. He had weaponized the environment.
But the clones weren't dead. They were just disarmed.
"Stay back!" Marcus yelled into the fog, drawing his rusted combat knife from his belt.
He didn't wait for JARVIS to paint targets in the steam. He didn't wait for the fog to clear.
He lowered his center of gravity. He gripped the dull knife tightly in his burned left hand.
He sprinted forward, completely blind, straight into the scalding white fog.