Chapter 4: Protocol E

Hiro had seen many strange things in his life. He'd seen a rat in an alleyway that was the size of a stop sign. He'd seen his friend Fred eat a hot dog off of the sidewalk. He'd even seen one the HYDRA guards that was holding him captive dancing in the hall when the door was opened. Now, Hiro had mentally checked scaley man off of the list.

The scaley man looked more afraid of them then they were of him. Hiro didn't understand why. From looking at his hands, which were also full of scales, he could see very sharp claws where fingernails should be, so he definitely had something to defend himself with, and he clearly could handle himself in a gunfight without a gun.

Everyone was silent as May held the man to the ground. The only noise that could be heard was the man's heavy breathing and Skye gasping.

"Okay," Hiro said with an awkward laugh. "Clearly, I am high, and the man sitting before me does not actually have scales on his body. That's it right? I'm high?"

"No," Skye said looking at the scaley man in awe, "I see it too."

"So we're both high."

"No one's high," Coulson said. "He must be one of HYDRA's experiments." The man's eyes were darting back and forth, looking at everybody individually.

"What's your name?" May asked, still holding the man down.

"M...my... my name?" the man asked shakily. "My, name… I… I think I remember… my name." He squinted his eyes, looking like he was thinking hard. "I'm… my name… it's Lucas." He opened his eyes, moving them rapidly again.

"What… happened to you?" Skye said. Then Lucas's eyes stopped moving, and were now fixed on Skye.

"You… you're not HYDRA?" he asked, looking like he had tears in his eyes. Hiro couldn't tell if Lucas was actually crying or if his reptilian eyes were just really glossy.

"We're with S.H.I.E.L.D.," Coulson stated. "What did HYDRA do to you?"

"HYDRA," Lucas said with disgust. May was off of him now, but he was still sitting on the warehouse floor. He lifted his arms, and looked at his hands. "HYDRA did this to me. They… they put needles in me. They put needles in… in all of us. I was… the only one to… survive."

"There were others?" May asked.

"This must be one of the facilities where HYDRA is experimenting with powered people."

"No," Lucas said calmly. "No, they're not experimenting on powered people. They're making their own. I was the result of what they called 'success'. They tried holding me here, waiting for someone important to show up. But I escaped."

"Are they here now?" Hiro asked.

"Yes," Lucas said. "Yes they're here. All of them; the scientists and the guards." Hiro noticed that Lucas had stopped speaking so shakily. He wasn't stuttering, and was talking in full sentences. He was probably getting less scared knowing S.H.I.E.L.D. had found him. Like Hiro when he was found. Although it looked like HYDRA had done way worse to Lucas than they had to Hiro.

"Was there someone in charge here?" Hiro spoke up. "Someone named Ansgar-"

"Ansgar!" Lucas yelled, standing up quickly. "Ansgar… that monster injected me himself. Every month for the past three years he would come, and he'd bring that god damned scepter." Three years. Hiro was shocked. HYDRA had only held him for three months. But, then again, he was saved by S.H.I.E.L.D. Was HYDRA planning on keeping him for three years if he hadn't been rescued?

"Scepter?" Coulson asked, moving closer to Lucas. "What did it look like?"

"I… I don't know. It… was gold, shiny… uh… it had some blue thing in it… I don't know. They've only brought it here a handful of times, and every time, they'd hook it up to wires and experiment on us." Lucas said all of this with such disgust.

"Loki's scepter," Coulson said. "HYDRA's been using it's power to experiment on people. Can you take us down there?"

"No!" Lucas yelled standing back. "No, i'll never go back down to that hell hole. They don't know i'm gone, and i'm planning on keeping things that way. But, the entrance is over there." Lucas pointed toward an opened part of the wall that had a staircase leading underground. That;s where Lucas must've escaped from.

"Okay, seriously?" Hiro said. "HYDRA also puts all of their bases underground? That's so pointless. What if they need to escape or something?"

"Hiro, I think it's in our best interest to not give HYDRA pointers," Coulson said. "Lucas, S.H.I.E.L.D. can help you. We have programs that help enhanced people. If you'd like, you can come with us once we're done here, just wait in the jeep."

Lucas was silent for a moment, thinking about Coulson's offer. "So… so you can cure me?"

"It's not that simple. We're not sure what HYDRA's done to you, and there's no guarantee we can fix it. But, we can hide you from HYDRA, and help you in any way we can."

Lucas shifted uncomfortably. "I don't exactly have anywhere else to go. When I was grabbed by HYDRA, I was living on the streets. I'll come with you."

"Good," Coulson nodded. "Wait in the Jeep. This facility can't be that large, so we shouldn't be long."

As the team began to head toward the opened door to the HYDRA facility, Hiro could hear the sound of the jeep's door closing as Lucas got in. He couldn't believe there was an actual program for people with powers. Sure, he knew about the Avengers, but Hiro had never knew there were more superheros out there.

The team made their way down the long staircase that seemed like it would never end. The only light came from the occasional bulb that was embedded in the wall every twenty feet they went down. The staircase was just as creepy as the warehouse if not creepier. There were cobwebs everywhere, the rock walls were missing sections of stone. Hiro even thought he saw a speck of blood on one of the steps. That's welcoming.

Eventually the staircase ended. To the right was just a wall, but to the left was a hallway that looked like it lead into a larger room. Coulson motioned for everyone to follow him, guns raised. The hallway seemed pointless. There were no doors, or anything indicating significance. It's like it was built solely to make the place look bigger.

At the end of the hallway, there was a large door frame, but no door. The team hid behind the sides of the door frame as they peered into the room beyond. There were large pieces of machinery everywhere, and it was dark except for the white glow of what looked like jail cells that had glass instead of bars. Those were to the left. To the right were the large pieces of machinery that didn't seem to be doing anything but take up space. In the center of the room was a small table… long enough for a body to lay on. Standing around it were three men in labcoats, and four armed guards were standing around them. Anagar was nowhere to be seen, but he had to be around here somewhere.

"I think we've stumbled upon something in the cell structure," on of the scientists said in a german accent. "Grab subject forty nine, and we can compare these." One of the guards began walking toward the jail cells, and stopped five feet away from them.

"Uh, he's not in here," he said. This man had an american accent.

"What!" The man in the labcoat from before walked angrily over to the guard and peered through the glass of the cell. "You imbeciles have one job! One! That subject was the most important thing in this lab and you idiots let him escape. Find him. Now!" The guards began walking to the door frame when Coulson, May, and Skye came out of the darkness, guns raised. Hiro stepped out last.

"No one's going anywhere," Coulson said. Before the guards could raise their guns, everyone but Hiro fired their weapons and the first three went down. The last one got had assault rifle raised, but only slightly before Hiro shot him in the face with a stun repulsor. He loved doing that. He noticed that he, unlike the rest of the team, had only stunned his target. The others shot their's without a second though. Hiro had never killed anyone before. He had always left the criminals unconscious for the cops. But, this was something the cops couldn't handle.

The team walked past the bodies with their guns pointed at the three scientists, who were raising their hands. Hiro could now see what was spread out across the table, it was a body. This one had scales like Lucas, but only in a few spots, and they were black. It's like they were burned. What was HYDRA doing down here?

"Ah, so S.H.I.E.L.D. has finally found us," the german scientist said, not smiling, but not exactly looking angry either. "I assume you freed subject forty nine?"

"If you're talking about Lucas," Coulson said, "then he's with us."

"You have no idea what it is you're stopping here," the scientist spat. "This is years of research and science in progress. We are only mere years away from being able to create super powered soldiers to protect the world."

"Or tear it down," Coulson said. "Ansgar Teufel, where is he?" The scientist laughed.

"Long gone," he said. Hiro's hopes were shattered. They had come here to find Ansgar, and put him away for good. But now, Hiro learned that he was nowhere to be found.

"Well then, I guess that leaves you with a choice," Coulson continued. "You could tell us where he is and we can arrest you, or you can not tell us and be arrested anyway.

"You don't seem to understand that you are not at any level to negotiate with us." The scientist pulled a small device from his labcoat and held it in the air. "Leave now, or I push this button."

"You know, threatening to push a button isn't all that threatening." It was to Hiro. Who knows what that thing did.

"We're willing to make a sacrifice to ensure our freedom. You get any closer and we activate a deadly chemical in subject forty nine's blood. Protocol E is what we call it." Man, that was a sacrifice. From what Hiro had heard, Lucas was there most prized experiment, and they were just willing to kill him off so that they don't get arrested. Cowards.

The team stepped back a little. Classic bad guy move to threaten someone with a push of a button. And Lucas probably had no idea.

"Don't do something you'll regret," May said.

"Oh I won't regret it. Infact…" The button was pushed. A loud explosion was heard and the team looked up to the ceiling. Was that Lucas?

"There's something about us that you simply will never understand," the scientist continued. The team faced him again. "We don't care about our own safety like you S.H.I.E.L.D. stooges. We live to complete a goal, and that can be achieved without us." All three of the scientist wiggled something in their mouths and bit hard. The scientists were shaking now, with foam spilling from their mouths "Cut off one head… two… more… shall take it's… place. Hail HYDRA!" All three of the men fell to the floor, not breathing. The room fell silent.

"Lucas," Skye said horrified. She began rushing towards the exit of the underground lab. Hiro followed, as did Coulson and May. When they reached the surface, the team came running out of the warehouse to find the jeep. It was decimated. Where it was originally parked, a large scorch mark was burned into the ground, and the remaining pieces were scattered all around in flames.

"Lucas," Hiro muttered sadly. He was innocent. He had been captured by HYDRA and tortured for the past three years, and now he was dead, for no reason whatsoever.

Coulson walked over to the center of the scorch mark and knelt down. He was staring at a spot of burnt ground that was shaped like a person.

"Coulson, what is that?" Hiro asked.

"It's an effect of the chemical Lucas had in his system," Coulson replied. "It's Extremis."

A S.H.I.E.L.D. clean up crew came thirty minutes later to examine the lab. There were some scientists examining the scorch mark that had Lucas's imprint, but most of the agents were inside the HYDRA base. There was a hacker on the computers, who Hiro remembered Coulson calling Fitz, trying to pull up any information on what HYFRA was doing here, and there was a team investigating the strange chemicals that were everywhere. Simmons was at the table that held the strange body Hiro had saw before.

"I've never seen anything like it," she said. "It's like this person's cellular structure was just removed and replaced with that of a reptile. What exactly was HYDRA doing down here?"

"We're not sure," Coulson said looking around the room. "There was a living one, but you passed what was left of him outside. Scales seem to be the new fashion trend."

"About… what was outside," Simmons said, "HYDRA has access to Extremis? I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken the last of it after the Centipede project."

"HYDRA was S.H.I.E.L.D. Simmons. I'm sure they got the extremis the same way they obtained Loki's scepter." Coulson said simply. "Though, it doesn't look like they're using it to make super soldiers. The scientists here used it as some sort of fail safe, incase any experiment got away. They seem to be taking another path entirely trying to give people powers. Where are we on that body?"

"Well, like I said, some spots seemed to have been replaced by reptilian DNA. I'm not sure what HYDRA was going for, but i'm glad there wasn't anything like this that worked,"

"Lucas worked. He escaped from HYDRA, and he looked like that, except he was green, and well… breathing."

"What's Extremis?" Hiro spoke up. He had been sitting in one of the spinning chairs by the computers, listening to the conversation. Coulson walked over to Hiro.

About two years ago, a company known as A.I.M developed a serum that was supposed to help wounded soldiers get back into the fight," he explained.

"Supposed to?"

"The director of A.I.M, Aldrich Killian, found that he could do so much more with it once a dangerous side effect was discovered. When someone not strong enough was given to much Extremis, they would… explode."

"Like what happened to Lucas?" Coulson nodded.

"Aldrich decided to make soldiers with his serum, but he was stopped by Iron Man. A while back, we encountered a group called Centipede. They were making their own soldiers out of their own serum, where Extremis was the key ingredient. We stopped them. Now it looks like HYDRA's gotten their hands on some."

Hiro began to wonder what it felt like. How did it feel to explode? Lucas most likely suffered, but Hiro tried to shake that thought away.

"Coulson," Fitz said, turning around in his chair at the computers. "I've found something." Hiro and Coulson gathered around Fitz as he was typing on the computer. "Apparently, this lab has been here for years. They've been conducting all kinds of experiments on people here."

"What's that?" Hiro pointed to a spot on the screen where there was a list of names.

"Oh, that appears to be a list of the scientists that worked here. He scrolled down the screen to show Hiro, then something caught his eye.

"Wait!" Hiro said. "Go back." Fitz scrolled up the screen until Hiro told him to stop. "There." Hiro couldn't believe what he was looking at.

"What is it Hiro?" Coulson asked. Hiro read the two names over and over again, trying to make sense of them. Tomeo Hamada and Maemi Hamada. "They're my parents."

(A/N) DUH, DUH, DUUUUUUUH! So yeah, that happened. I feel like I put too much character development into someone who was going to die, but eh, too late now. Don't you feel bad for Lucas? I tried to insert Fitz into this chapter so you could finally see him. It took me a while to write this one. First, I had writers block, then I had my good internet back so I could play on XBOX. Wow, i'm lazy. None the less, I found time to write this chapter, and pretty well if I do say so myself. Thank you guys for reviewing, it really means a lot to me! That's DaydreamDepartment out of your hair! ;)