The boring-machine train screamed as it tore through the subterranean bedrock. It was a sound of tortured metal and grinding stone, a cacophony that vibrated in the teeth of every soldier on board.
Inside the command carriage, the air was thick with the smell of ozone, hydraulic fluid, and dried blood.
"Depth: Two hundred meters!" Scrap-Jack yelled from the pilot's seat, wrestling with the levers. "We're vibrating like a blender! The drill bits are overheating!"
"Keep pushing!" Varian shouted, holding onto a strap as the carriage lurched violently. "If we slow down, the Union catches us. If we stop, we're buried."
Varian looked around the carriage. It was packed with the Iron Legion elite.
Lady Venom was slumped against a crate of ammo, wiping soot from her pale face. Rix was hanging from the ceiling, his blue-ringed eyes darting toward the rear door, watching for pursuers.
But Varian's eyes were fixed on the corner of the carriage.
There, huddled in the shadows, sat Gorgon.
The giant wasn't celebrating their victory. He was shaking.
The Crimson Paladin armor was fused to his body. It wasn't just metal plates strapped to his stone skin; it was a parasitic growth. Red veins of energy pulsed across the surface of the armor, digging into Gorgon's granite flesh like roots seeking water. Steam hissed from the joints.
"Gorgon?" Varian stepped closer, lowering his voice.
The giant didn't look up. He was muttering.
"Quiet... quiet... stop screaming..." Gorgon whispered. His voice sounded like gravel grinding in a mixer.
"Who is screaming?" Varian asked gently.
Gorgon looked up.
His eyes—usually a calm, solid gray—were burning with a frantic, unstable red light.
"Everyone," Gorgon rasped. "The armor. It hates you, Boss. It hates everyone. It wants me to... to crush..."
His massive hand, encased in the red gauntlet, twitched. It crushed the steel bench he was sitting on as if it were Styrofoam.
"Fascinating," The Architect popped up from behind a crate. The old man was holding a Geiger counter, waving it near Gorgon. "The Psi-Radiation is off the charts. The armor isn't just protecting him. It's rewriting his neural pathways. It's trying to delete his ego to make room for its own combat algorithms."
"Delete him?" Varian grabbed the Architect by the collar. "Fix it."
"I can't fix a hurricane, boy!" The Architect cackled, tapping the gauge. "That armor is an Emperor-Class Symbiote. It has a will. A very angry will. It rejected the Titan because the Titan was a husk. It chose the Rock-Man because he has a soul. And now it's trying to eat that soul."
RUMBLE.
The train lurched again.
"Boss!" Rix shrieked from the ceiling. "Tail! We have a tail!"
The Moles of the Union
Varian ran to the rear viewport.
Through the dust and darkness of the tunnel behind them, lights appeared.
They weren't trains. They were Mole-Pods.
Small, single-man drilling vehicles shaped like torpedoes. They had diamond-tipped noses and thrusters burning blue.
[Enemy Encounter.][Subject: Union Pursuit Craft (Mole-Class).][Armament: Seismic Torpedoes / Plasma Drills.][Count: 12... 15... Increasing.]
"They're faster than us," Varian realized.
A Mole-Pod accelerated, its drill spinning. It slammed into the side of the rear carriage—the one carrying the Dregs.
CRUNCH.
The metal tore open. The Dregs inside screamed as the Union pilot opened fire with a plasma cutter.
"They're boarding!" Varian shouted. "Rix! Venom! Defend the rear!"
"On it!" Venom's eyes flashed green. She grabbed a canister of toxic gas. "Come on, Rix. Let's fumigate."
They ran toward the back of the train.
Varian turned back to Gorgon. The giant was rocking back and forth, clutching his helmet.
"Get out... GET OUT!" Gorgon roared.
Suddenly, Gorgon stood up.
He didn't look at the enemy behind them. He looked at Varian.
The red light in his visor flared brighter. The Crimson Paladin had taken the wheel.
[Warning: Ally Hostile.][Subject Gorgon is compromised.][The Armor perceives the Sovereign as a rival Alpha.]
"Gorgon," Varian raised his hands, showing he held no weapon. "It's me. Varian."
"Weak," the voice coming from Gorgon wasn't his own. It was metallic, layered, demonic. "Flesh is weak. Stone is weak. Only Wrath is eternal."
Gorgon raised his hammer. The red energy flared, turning the weapon into a burning meteor.
"Architect! Kill the engine!" Varian shouted.
"We can't stop!" Scrap-Jack yelled from the front. "If we stop, the Moles swarm us!"
"If we don't stop, Gorgon destroys the train from the inside!"
Gorgon swung.
Varian dove.
BOOM.
The hammer smashed into the floor where Varian had been standing. The impact buckled the steel plating, nearly severing the coupling to the engine. Sparks showered the carriage.
Varian rolled to his feet. He drew the Sun-Piercer.
"I don't want to hurt you, big guy," Varian pleaded.
"Hurt me?" The Crimson Armor laughed. "You are fuel."
Gorgon charged. He was faster than he had ever been. The armor propelled his heavy body with supernatural speed.
Varian didn't use the blade. He used the shaft. He parried a blow that would have taken his head off.
CLANG.
The impact vibrated through Varian's bones. Even with his Soul Soldier strength, he was barely holding on. Gorgon was physically stronger.
"Onyx! Restrain!"
Varian's left arm liquefied. Black tentacles shot out, wrapping around Gorgon's legs.
"Anchor!"
Onyx hardened, turning into steel bands bolted to the floor.
Gorgon roared. He didn't try to untie them. He just stepped forward.
SCREEE.
He ripped the floor plates up. The strength of the Crimson Armor was absolute.
"Architect!" Varian screamed, dodging another swing. "How do I shut it down?"
The Architect was hiding under a table, scribbling frantically on a datapad.
"You can't shut it down! It's a bio-reactor! But... you can overload the regulator!"
"Speak English!"
"The helmet!" The Architect pointed. "The interface node on the back of the neck! It connects the armor's will to the host's brain stem. If you disrupt the signal with a higher frequency, you can force a reboot!"
"A higher frequency?" Varian ducked under a backhand. "Like what?"
"Like the Sun-Piercer! It's the Sovereign's frequency! Jam it in the socket!"
Varian looked at the glowing red node on the back of Gorgon's neck. It was a tiny target on a moving, raging giant.
"Easy peasy," Varian muttered.
Gorgon swung the hammer again.
Varian didn't dodge. He stepped into the swing.
He activated the Cryo-Gauntlet.
HISSS.
A blast of liquid nitrogen hit Gorgon's chest plate. The thermal shock made the armor hesitate for a split second.
Varian vaulted off Gorgon's chest. He flipped over the giant's shoulders.
He landed on Gorgon's back.
He wrapped his legs around the giant's waist. Gorgon thrashed, trying to crush Varian against the walls.
"Hold still!" Varian gritted his teeth.
He reversed the grip on his spear. He didn't use the blade. He used the butt of the spear—the conductive end.
"Solar Core... Surge!"
Varian poured his soul energy into the spear. It glowed blinding white.
He jammed the butt of the spear against the red node on Gorgon's neck.
ZZZZZ-CRACK.
Golden light clashed with red energy.
Gorgon stiffened. He screamed. It was a sound of two souls fighting for one body.
[Resonance Clash.][Sovereign Authority vs. Paladin Rage.][Overriding Command Protocols...]
"GORGON!" Varian shouted into the helmet's audio receptor. "You are the Shield of the Legion! Do not break!"
Inside the helmet, Gorgon's eyes rolled back.
In his mind, he was drowning in a sea of red blood. A voice was telling him to let go. To sleep. To let the anger take the pain away.
Then, a golden light pierced the red ocean. He saw Varian's hand.
"Be stubborn," Varian's voice echoed.
Gorgon grabbed the hand.
In the real world, the red light on the armor flickered. It dimmed from a blinding glare to a steady, sullen pulse.
Gorgon dropped the hammer. He fell to his knees.
Varian slid off, panting.
"Did... did I kill anyone?" Gorgon whispered. His voice was his own again, though weak.
"Just the floor," Varian said, resting a hand on the giant's shoulder pauldron. "You back with us?"
"Ideally," Gorgon groaned. "I have a headache the size of a planet. The armor... it's still there. It's whispering. But it's... quiet. Like a dog that knows it's been kicked."
The Architect crawled out from under the table.
"Temporary equilibrium," The Architect diagnosed, adjusting his glasses. "You asserted dominance. But the armor will try again. You must stay vigilant. You are now a Berserker. If you lose focus, you lose yourself."
The Dead End
"Sovereign!" Scrap-Jack's voice was panicked. "We have a problem!"
Varian ran to the front of the carriage.
"Did we lose the Union?"
"Yes and no," Scrap-Jack pointed out the viewport. "They stopped chasing us. Because they knew where we were going."
Varian looked ahead.
The tunnel ended.
Three hundred meters ahead, the ceiling had collapsed. A massive pile of rubble blocked the tracks.
And stuck in the rubble was a Seismic Charge. A Union bomb, ticking.
"It's a trap," Varian realized. "They herded us into a dead end."
"Braking distance is too short!" Scrap-Jack yelled, slamming the emergency levers. Sparks flew from the wheels. "We're going to hit the wall!"
Varian looked at the bomb. If they hit the rubble, the bomb goes off. They die.
If they stop, the Mole-Pods behind them catch up. They die.
He looked at the side of the tunnel.
"There!" Varian pointed. "That drainage pipe! It leads to the Sunken Highway!"
"That's not a train tunnel!" Scrap-Jack argued. "It's a sewer line!"
"Does this look like a train that cares?" Varian roared. "Gorgon! Smash the wall!"
Gorgon stood up. He picked up his hammer. The red armor pulsed, sensing violence. This time, Gorgon channeled it.
"With pleasure."
Gorgon charged to the side door of the moving train. He leaped out while they were still moving at 80 km/h.
He hit the tunnel wall mid-air.
BOOOOM.
The Crimson Titan smashed through the brickwork surrounding the drainage pipe. The wall crumbled, revealing a massive, rushing underground river.
"Scrap-Jack! Turn hard right! Derail us into the hole!"
"You're crazy!" Scrap-Jack laughed maniacally. "Hold onto your teeth!"
He locked the wheels.
The train screeched. It tilted. It jumped the tracks.
The massive boring machine slammed into the hole Gorgon had made.
CRUNCH-SCREEE.
The train shattered the masonry and plunged nose-first into the darkness of the drainage pipe.
Behind them, the Union Seismic Bomb detonated.
KABOOM.
The tunnel they had just left collapsed, burying the tracks under millions of tons of rock. The Mole-Pods pursuing them were crushed or forced to turn back.
But the Iron Legion was gone.
The Sunken Highway
The train splashed down into deep, rushing water. It bobbed, half-submerged. The boring drill acted as a keel, keeping them upright.
It was dark. Silent, except for the rushing water.
Varian climbed onto the roof of the carriage. He ignited the Sun-Piercer to cast a light.
They were in a massive, natural cavern. A river of black water flowed fast, carrying them deeper into the earth.
"We lost the rear carriage," Rix reported, climbing up beside him. He looked sad. "Twelve Dregs lost."
Varian stared at the water. "We saved the rest."
Gorgon climbed onto the roof. The red armor was steaming in the cool air.
"Where are we, Boss?"
Varian looked at the walls. They were lined with bioluminescent fungi, but not the kind from the forest. These were blue, pale, and looked like drowned fingers.
[Genetic Archivist Scan.][Location: The Sunken Highway.][Depth: Sector 6 (Abyssal Layer).][Threat Level: Severe.]
"We're off the map," Varian whispered. "This river flows under the prison layer. It goes all the way to the Core."
He looked at his team. They were battered, bleeding, and terrified. But they were alive.
"Rest up," Varian said. "We drift for now. But keep your eyes on the water."
He looked at the black surface of the river.
"Because down here... things don't need eyes to see us."
Deep below the train, in the crushing dark of the water, something massive shifted. Three heads turned upward, sensing the vibration of the intruders.
The hunt wasn't over. It had just changed elements.