Fire and chaos

The monster Hydra had created-the test subject code-named Furnace-was like a miniature volcano on the verge of eruption. Visible sparks sprayed from his nostrils with every breath. His skin had turned completely dark red, like magma, and veins covered his body like red fissures, radiating an alarming heat.

"Let's see what goodies Hydra gave you."

Before Zhao Fan finished speaking, the naked giant radiating intense heat had already moved.

"Come on, little mouse!"

Furnace roared, his voice harsh and hoarse from the heat scorching his vocal cords. He stamped down hard, instantly melting a depression into the thick alloy floor. Using that recoil, the two-meter giant hurled himself at Zhao Fan like a burning cannonball.

There were no fancy techniques, just pure strength and heat. His right fist swept forward on a wave of heat, warping the air ahead of his knuckles with crackling reports.

Zhao Fan did not retreat. His feet were planted like nails in the deck. Just as the giant's fist, blazing orange-red, was about to smash his skull, Zhao Fan slid to the left at an utterly unnatural angle.

[Phase Blink] activated.

A distortion barely visible to the naked eye appeared in the air. Zhao Fan's figure seemed to skip a frame in reality, his entire body turning translucent and insubstantial for that instant.

Whoosh!

The burning fist thundered past Zhao Fan's ear and slammed into the airtight doorframe behind him.

Ssszzzt!

The half-meter-thick alloy frame melted instantly like butter, spraying molten metal.

In that instant as they passed each other, Zhao Fan moved. The muscles in his right leg tensed, and the Extremis Virus cells inside him pumped furiously, gathering a powerful surge of bioelectric energy at his knee. At the same time, [Hard Carapace] activated. A black keratin layer rapidly covered his entire knee, forming an indestructible ram.

"On your knees!"

With a low roar, Zhao Fan drove a vicious knee strike into the back of the giant's knee.

Thud!

A dull impact rang out as chitinous armor met reinforced bone head-on.

That blow would have snapped an ordinary person's leg clean in two. But Furnace merely lurched sideways. A sharp crack came from his knee, but it did not break apart. The molten energy inside him surged toward the injury, instantly reconstructing and healing fractured bone and torn muscle in the intense heat.

"Roar!"

The giant bellowed in rage. His right arm, which had missed its target, swept back with its momentum. The entire arm swelled, his skin splitting open to release jets of visible, scalding steam.

An area attack!

Zhao Fan had nowhere to dodge. The corridor was narrow, with walls on either side.

Zhao Fan's gaze turned cold, and he stopped trying to evade. He crossed his arms over his chest as [Hard Carapace] instantly covered his upper body with a dark gold metallic sheen. At the same time, he pressed both palms outward against the air.

[Kinetic Repulsion: Shield]!

Boom!

The giant's arm slammed into an invisible wall of air. Blue repulsion waves collided violently with red thermal energy in midair, producing a thunderous roar.

The tremendous impact traveled through the repulsion field into Zhao Fan.

Zhao Fan grunted. His feet plowed two grooves about an inch deep into the floor, and he slid back five or six meters before barely managing to stop.

A system notification sounded in his mind.

Zhao Fan shook out his slightly numb arms. Watching the monster turn and lunge at him again, he instead curled his lips into a savage grin.

"That's all you've got? A little hotter, a little stronger, and as stupid as a pig."

Despite his words, Zhao Fan remained exceptionally calm inside. This monster's regenerative ability was too powerful for conventional physical attacks to do much. He had to cut off its energy circulation, or... make it overheat.

"Old Dog, are you there?" Zhao Fan pressed his earpiece, his voice frighteningly calm.

"I'm here! I'm here! This damn lock is complicated!" Old Dog's exasperated voice came through the earpiece. "Ben said cracking it would take thirty seconds. I'm reasoning with it using explosives!"

"Then hurry." Zhao Fan watched the scorched earth charging him again.

Unable to bring him down after repeated attacks, the giant's eyes glowed an increasingly intense red. He stopped charging blindly and instead plunged both hands into the alloy deck beneath his feet.

What is he doing?

A second later, Zhao Fan had his answer.

Szzzzz-

Every light in the corridor went out, replaced by a dark red glow beneath the floor. This lunatic was actually drawing power from the backup electrical lines beneath the entire carrier's decks!

The giant pulled out his hands. His arms had now become completely translucent magma, with scalding, high-energy plasma flowing through them instead of blood.

"Die!"

The giant spat out the indistinct word and slammed his hands together. A massive energy column over half a meter in diameter blasted straight toward Zhao Fan!

"Playing with fire, huh?"

Zhao Fan abruptly stopped in his tracks and no longer dodged.

Watching the flames rushing toward him, he felt no fear. Instead, he sensed a hungry pulse within his body.

He extended both hands and thrust them straight into the pillar of flame.

[Passive ability: Extremis Virus activated. Absorbing energy from the same source...]

The flames that should have reduced Zhao Fan to ashes instead flowed into his body like water the instant they touched his palms. The veins in his arms bulged and turned a dazzling gold. The swelling pain nearly made him scream, but he held it back.

Test Subject 01 froze. What little intelligence he had left could not comprehend the scene before him-his energy was being plundered.

"Have it back!"

Zhao Fan's eyes had turned completely golden-red. He had absorbed enough energy, and the pressure inside his body had been compressed to its limit.

He suddenly rushed forward, ignoring the other man's scorching skin, and clamped both hands around the giant's shoulders.

[Thermal Overload + Kinetic Shock]!

"Aaaaaah!!!"

Zhao Fan mixed all the thermal energy he had just absorbed with high-frequency vibrating repulsion and poured it into the giant's body in a single instant.

The giant's body instantly expanded. Countless fissures opened across his skin, shooting out blinding light.

Boom-

A muffled explosion.

Like an overinflated balloon, Test Subject 01 burst into a shower of fire and chunks of flesh.

The blast threw Zhao Fan into the wall with a heavy impact. He gasped for air, every breath feeling as though countless tiny files were scraping inside his chest. He felt as if every bone in his body was about to fall apart. Burns covered his skin, but they soon healed under the golden light.

Although the [Extremis Virus] had converted that violent energy for his own use, his flesh-and-blood body was no machine. The intense heat of that instantaneous overload left his body aching.

Gasping heavily, he struggled to his feet. "Old Dog! How's it going?"

"It's... it's in!" Old Dog's voice trembled with excitement. "Ben! You're up!"

Meanwhile, far away at the ground processing station, Benjamin's hands became a blur over the keyboard.

"Got it! Connecting... cracking the firewall... bypassing the Zola Algorithm... uploading the virus..."

The progress bar on the screen advanced rapidly.

"Done! Key activated! Synchronizing the interference signal!"

Benjamin's voice cracked with excitement as he shrieked through the earpiece. "We're connected! Boss! This 'master key' is incredible! I just forced an overwrite of this carrier's underlying logic through the physical port! I can't take complete control, but I added a little 'seasoning' to its friend-or-foe identification system!"

"What seasoning?"

"I reset the identification codes of every biological unit! Now this ship's main computer thinks... everyone's an intruder!"

"So..." Zhao Fan straightened, feeling the violent tremors running through the deck beneath his feet. "It's attacking its own people?"

At that very instant, the Helicarrier Alpha, which had been ascending steadily to its designated firing altitude, suddenly shuddered violently.

On the bridge, the Hydra commander stared in horror at a screen full of red warnings. "What's happening? Weapons systems offline? Navigation failure? Why have we lost contact with the Alpha carrier?!"

"Nice work."

Leaning against the scorched wall, Zhao Fan pulled a bottle of recovery potion from his pocket and gulped it down.

But he knew it was not over.

This had only thrown the Alpha carrier into chaos. To truly destroy these three behemoths, Captain America still needed to manually replace the chips aboard the other two carriers.

Zhao Fan watched the exterior view on the holographic screen, a dazzling and brutal fireworks display. "It's working even better than expected." He pulled out the black key and took it back into his hand.

Meanwhile, in another part of the airspace, aboard the Helicarrier Charlie.

"Cap, how are things on your end?"

Sam Wilson's-Falcon's-anxious voice came through the earpiece. "I've taken care of Beta's chip. I wanted to head for Alpha, but the antiaircraft fire over here is too heavy. I can't get close to Charlie to back you up, either! Damn it!"

"I'll handle it." Steve glanced at the last targeting chip in his hand, then at the figure blocking his path. "But I've run into a little trouble."

At the far end of the skybridge leading to the fire control center, the ghost known as the Winter Soldier stood silently.

Captain America, Steve Rogers, was in the hardest fight of his life.

It was not just because he had to replace this behemoth's targeting chip amid a hail of bullets, but because the man blocking his path was his former best friend-Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.

"Bucky! Stop! Don't you recognize me?"

Steve raised his shield and took a heavy blow from the Winter Soldier's mechanical arm head-on. He slid backward several meters, his boot soles screeching against the deck.

The Winter Soldier gave no response. His eyes were empty and cold, holding only the instinct to kill. His submachine gun spat fire, sending bullets ricocheting off the Vibranium Shield.

"Cap! We're out of time!" Falcon Sam Wilson's voice broke in and out over the comms. "The Alpha and Beta carriers have reached their designated altitude! Their weapons systems are charging! Once they link up, millions of people are dead!"

Bucky Barnes.

His former closest friend was now an emotionless killing machine.

Steve glanced into the distance.

There was the Alpha carrier, its massive triple-barreled rapid-fire cannons slowly rotating, their muzzles pointing toward Washington's crowded streets below.

"I know! Leave this to me!"

Steve hurled his shield, knocking the gun from the Winter Soldier's hand, then lunged forward. The two grappled on the narrow walkway.

Just then, Steve caught something unusual out of the corner of his eye.

At that critical moment, something suddenly changed.

The Alpha carrier, hovering on their flank with its guns slowly turning toward the ground, abruptly shuddered violently.

Then the hundreds of automated close-in cannons along its hull seemed to go berserk. They stopped aiming at their previously locked ground targets and began firing indiscriminately in every direction.

Ratatatat-!

A dense barrage instantly filled the sky. Two Hydra fighters pursuing Falcon were caught completely off guard and torn apart by friendly fire, plunging into the river as fireballs.

Even the Winter Soldier, still fighting Steve, had to roll aside when a stray round struck the deck beside his feet.

"What's going on?" Steve froze. "Sam, was that you?"

"Not me!" Sam shouted in surprise. "I'm still being hunted! Look at Alpha."

Indeed, the enormous Helicarrier looked like a drunken giant. Its engine exhausts flickered, and its hull began listing to the left, its enormous wing nearly scraping the Beta beside it.

Panicked shouts filled S.H.I.E.L.D.'s public channel, now controlled by Hydra:

"What's happening to Alpha? Its fire control system is offline!"

"Someone's breached the main server! That's... that's a physical key!"

"We can't override it! They've locked down the weapons interface! Damn it, the turrets are out of control! They're attacking our own people!"

As Steve listened to the chaotic voices in his earpiece, a trace of puzzlement flashed through his eyes.

Someone was helping them?

But everyone left in S.H.I.E.L.D. they could trust was already here. Did Fury have another contingency?

"Whoever it is..." Steve glanced at the carrier descending into chaos.

"What's happening?" Sam's astonished voice came through. "Are these Hydra guys fighting each other?"

Steve punched the Winter Soldier back and glanced at the chaotic scene, panting. "No... it looks like a system problem. Maybe... someone's helping us."

"Whoever it is, this gives us an opening." Steve wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and clenched his fists again. "Sorry, Bucky. I have to get through."

He charged the Winter Soldier again.

And at the other end of the battlefield, the man who had truly caused all this chaos had an entirely different goal.