The first tank didn't crack. It exploded.
The dark red fluid burst outward, flooding the floor with a cold, chemical slime. The creature inside didn't step out; it fell, its silver limbs tangled and twitching. It had no face, only a raw, exposed core pulsing where a heart should be.
"They were all you, Corvin," the old man whispered, his voice whistling through the cracked mask. "Every one of them. Different flesh, different silver, but the same soul... stretched until it snapped."
More tanks began to shatter.
One by one, the failures rose. Some were bloated, their silver plating stretched over mounds of translucent muscle. Others were thin and jagged, their hands ending in long, needle-like shards. They didn't growl. They emitted a low, vibrating hum that made Corvin's own core ache.
Corvin backed away, his heavy boots splashing through the red liquid. His molten arm hissed as it touched the cold chemicals.
"Why?" Corvin's voice was a low vibration of anger.
"Because the Titan is hungry," the old man stepped back into the shadows. "It doesn't want a pilot. It wants a fuel. And you, Sequence 07... you are the most refined fuel we ever created."
The bloated prototype lunged first.
It moved with a disturbing, jerky speed. Corvin didn't have time to think. He swung his remaining silver hand, catching the creature's neck. But the prototype's flesh was soft, unnaturally elastic. His fingers sank into the cold meat, and the creature wrapped its four arms around his torso, squeezing with the strength of a hydraulic press.
Corvin felt his silver ribs groan. A sharp, undeniable crack echoed in the chamber.
He didn't scream. He drove his molten, blackened stump directly into the prototype's exposed core.
The explosion of energy was blinding. The creature's body disintegrated into ash, but the heat threw Corvin backward, his frame slamming into another row of glass tanks. More fluid. More monsters.
He struggled to his feet, his vision blurring. His internal heat was flickering, the dark fire in his veins beginning to cool.
"You're fading," the old man's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "Your heart was never meant to last. It was meant to be returned."
High above, Maren felt the air turn to ice.
She was halfway down the ladder when the metal walls around her began to moan. The shaft wasn't straight anymore; it was twisting, the metal bending like soft wax.
"Kael, the walls!" she shouted, holding her daughter's collar.
Kael looked down into the pitch-black depth. "It's the Titan. It's shifting its internal organs. We're not in a building, Maren... we're inside a throat."
A sudden gust of freezing wind shot up from below, nearly tearing them off the ladder. Below them, a massive, circular door began to glow with a sickly blue light.
Back in the graveyard, Corvin was surrounded.
Six prototypes stood in a circle, their movements synchronized. They raised their jagged, silver arms in unison.
Corvin looked at his blackened stump. The dark, oily fire was dying. He was out of energy. Out of time.
He looked at the old man, who was now holding a long, silver needle connected to a pulsing machine.
"Don't fight the return, Corvin. You were built to be a memory. Let the Titan have you."
Corvin gritted his teeth, his silver eyes flashing with a final, defiant spark. He didn't look at the monsters. He looked at the floor—at the thick, blue veins pulsing beneath the chrome.
If he was fuel, he was going to burn the whole graveyard down.
He slammed his molten arm into the floor, not aiming for the creatures, but for the pulsing veins below.
The world went white.