Chapter 9: The Master Plan
"Get to cover!" Coulson yelled as the S.H.I.E.L.D. team and the Big Hero 6 entered the facility. They walked not ten feet in, and were greeted by HYDRA soldiers at the end of the hallway. The team took cover, under Coulson's order, behind opened door frames. Then gunshots rang throughout the hallway.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. team was doing more of the work. They were further up the hallway, and they were taking out most of the HYDRA agents. But Hiro knew his team needed to help. They needed to get to Ansgar as fast as they could, before he found some way off of the island.
"Honey Lemon!" HIro yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire. "Help them out!"
Honey Lemon nodded. She punched a chemical combination into her purse, and out popped a small grey looking ball. Hiro hadn't seen one that looked like that before. Honey Lemon was all about bright colors. Grey didn't seem like her.
She threw her ball down the hall, and it rolled between the feet of the HYDRA soldiers. Then their guns dropped.
At first, Hiro had thought that the soldiers had dropped their weapons in surrender. But it was more like they were being pulled from their hands. The chemical ball was attracting the weapons.
"Magnetic chemicals?" Hiro asked in confusion.
Honey Lemon smiled. "What? It's possible. You just saw it didn't you?" That answer didn't satisfy Hiro's question, but that didn't matter now.
The HYDRA agents tried running, but to no avail, as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents shot them all dead before they could make three feet. Then the entire team advanced.
Hiro didn't like the thought, but he was getting used to dead bodies now. It was horrifying when S.H.I.E.L.D. had first rescued him from HYDRA. All the innocent lives taken to free him. But after spending a couple of days with this team, the killing of HYDRA agents seemed natural. Hopefully it wasn't becoming a habit.
As the two teams explored the various hallways, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were checking any rooms for Ansgar. So far, nothing turned up. In fact, other than the HYDRA guards, the place looked deserted. The rooms were filled with dangerous looking equipment that looked like it hadn't been touched in ages. Hiro was surprised HYDRA hadn't taken that on their way in. What was Ansgar doing here?
"Okay, this is ridiculous," Skye said, agitated. "This place isn't all that big. We should've found something by now."
"We found HYDRA agents, so we know Ansgar's here," Fred pointed out.
"Yeah, but there were also HYDRA agents at Krei Tech, and he wasn't there.
"Ansgar has to be here," Hiro said. "If he's in the city, and he's trying to build something, this is the only place he would be. We just need to keep looking."
"Hiro's right," Coulson said. "Krei wouldn't have tried so hard to keep us from landing if Ansgar wasn't here."
"But Skye has a point," May said. "If Ansgar was here we would've found him by now."
"Uh, guys," Wasabi said.
Coulson was still arguing with May. "There are still plenty of rooms we haven't checked yet. Ansgar has to be in one of them."
"You guys seriously need to come look at this-" Wasabi was once again interrupted.
"Well what if he's not here Coulson?" May argued. "What then?"
"Guys!" Wasabi yelled at the top of his lungs. All eyes were on him now. "I think I found something." Wasabi pushed open an already cracked door, and revealed a large room. It looked like what appeared to be a large laboratory, with an elevated, smaller lab area next to it, but Hiro couldn't see over the edge. The part they were in seemed as if it were used to build large projects. Hiro didn't just assume that because of the size of the room though. The fact that there was a fifty foot tall machine taking up most of the space, kind of made that fact apparent.
The machine was very large. It was shaped like an O, and had a walkway leading directly to it's center.
"It can't be," Hiro said. The machine looked just as menacing as it did before, when Callaghan had tried using it to Krei. This was Krei's portal device. "This is what Ansgar's been building? What would he want with it?"
"It caught the military's attention when Krei built it," Coulson said. "It would only make sense that HYDRA would want to use it. Possibly for moving troops, or maybe even bombs."
"Well then what are we waiting for?" Fred said enthusiastically. "Let's wreck it up!"
"Fred, bad idea," Wasabi said. Remember what happened when Krei tried to use it? The thing freaking swallowed someone and blew up. Hell, that's just when it was being used properly. God knows what'll happen if we try to destroy it."
"He's right," Coulson said. "This thing's too dangerous to be messing with. We need to find Ansgar before anything-"
"Well," a voice, a german one, interrupted Coulson, "here I am."
Everyone looked to the elevated part of the lab. Standing behind the rail was Ansgar himself. The man who had imprisoned Hiro for months, the man who experimented on innocent people, and was a disgrace to mankind, was less than thirty feet away. The S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers aimed their weapons at Ansgar, and he playfully lifted his hands in the air. There were no guards around. He was completely alone and unguarded. Score.
"I suppose this is how it was going to end anyway. The heads of HYDRA always do, Alexander Pierce, Strucker, even Johann Shmidt himself. I should've seen this coming." He didn't seemed whatsoever surprised that he was being captured. What was he playing at?
There was a staircase leading up to the elevated lab space, where the S.H.I.E.L.D. team had rushed up and handcuffed Ansgar.
"Take him back to the quinjets," Coulson ordered the soldiers. "We'll question him later. In the meantime, we're going to need to get some engineers and Fitz down here to see if we can dismantle the portal device."
And just like that, it was over. Ansgar was being arrested. The man Hiro had been trying to find for days was now about to receive what was coming to him. Hiro didn't know what that was though, but he knew Ansgar would be punished… in some way. Although the fact that he had given up so easily didn't sit well with him.
The soldiers escorted Ansgar out of the lab, while the rest of the team stayed behind and examined the portal device.
"Is it me, or does this one look bigger than the one Krei made?" Honey Lemon asked as she walked around the large device.
"You know, I think it is," Gogo said. Gazing at the metal O herself. "I don't know what Krei was going to put through this thing, but Ansgar looks like he was gonna send a small army." Hiro knew Gogo meant that as an exaggeration, but knowing HYDRA, sending some kind of an army probably wasn't far off.
The engineers hadn't arrived yet, but Hiro was examining it himself. e never got a good look at it. He even went through the damn thing and still didn't know how it worked.
"I've never seen anything like it," Hiro said. "Krei must've spent millions on this thing, and i'm just talking the first time around. This one's way bigger."
"We'll understand how it works soon," Coulson said. "Where are Fitz and those engineers? They should've been here by now."
"He's not answering his cell," Skye said, tapping away at her phone.
"I don't like this," May said. "Ansgar let us take him. He wasn't even guarded. He's planning something."
"I wouldn't put it past him," Hiro said.
"Hey," Fred said, "what's this thing?" He was behind the portal device, and Hiro was wondering what he was talking about.
"What's-" Hiro stopped when he saw what Fred was talking about. Attached to the back of the machine was a large, probably plastic tube. Blue light was being run through the tube, and into the machine from a large, silver, generator-looking device that glowed the same blue.
"Oh. This must be what Ansgar was using to power this thing. Hey Coulson!" Coulson ran from the other side of the machine and examined the tube himself.
"No," he said as he was running his hand along the tube. He seemed to be talking to himself, but Hiro could hear him. "I thought the rest of this stuff was-" Coulson was cut off by the sound of his radio going off.
"Sir!" a voice yelled through the speaker. "Sir, Ansgar escaped!"
"What?!" Coulson yelled into his radio. "How'd he get away from you?"
"I'm not sure what happened. He… he just grabbed me and through me against a wall. He killed Jerry." Jerry must've been the other soldier guarding Ansgar. "The guy's a god damn freak, he broke his cuffs, and ran down the hall like a fucking madman."
"Do not let him get to the exit. If he gets to one of those quinjets he's gone."
"That's the thing sir. He ran in the direction we came."
"He's coming back here? Alright, just… follow him, that way we can catch him from our end, and if he tries to run, you'll be between him and the exit."
"Sounds like a plan."
Coulson clipped his radio to his belt, and started for the lab entrance.
Ansgar had escaped. Hiro knew he was planning something. But he killed a guy? Hiro had seen Ansgar many times during his imprisonment, and he didn't look that remarkable. The scar across his left eye had proven he'd been in some kind of fight before, but he sure as hell wasn't strong enough to kill an armed guard and thro the other one against a wall. That was… inhuman.
"Ansgar killed a someone?" May was just as surprised as Hiro was.
"Apparently," Coulson replied. "We need to trap him in the hallway. That other guard will be blocking the other side."
"Uh, you mean the same guard who Ansgar threw against a wall?" Gogo asked skeptically.
"It's not a perfect plan," was all Coulson had to say.
One of the soldiers went to open the door. He didn't even touch the knob before the entire thing was blown off of it's hinges.
The door went flying, and hit the guard that was attempting to open it.
The door went clang against the wall on the other side of the lab after hitting the guard, who was covered in large bruises and blood, and was most likely dead.
Everyone had their guns raised. Out of the door stepped Ansgar. He looked just about the same as he did before, just with more blood splattered on him. He walked into the room as if nothing had happened, as if S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't broken in and tried to arrest him. Emphasis on tried.
"Well," he said nonchalantly, "that was… messy."
"Ansgar don't move-" May began, but was cut off by Coulson.
"You've been using the Tesseract's energy to power the portal device," he said. He had completely ignored the fact that Ansgar was covered in blood, probably from the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he had killed. He had his pistol raise, aimed at Ansgar's head incase he made a move. But he remained still.
"Krei's portal device was a scientific breakthrough. But I needed more than that to get where i'm going."
"How'd you get it?" Coulson sounded like one of those cops of of NCIS or something.
"We always had it. After the newly founded S.H.I.E.L.D. confiscated what was left of it in the forties, HYDRA's inside agents kept track of it's location, and we would take it incase we ever needed it. That right there is the last bit of the Tesseract's energy on Earth." Ansgar motioned towards the large generator behind the portal device. "We just needed something to concentrate it, so we came to Krei."
"The Tesseract only brought things to and from one place. That's where you want to go?"
"Oh, director Coulson," Ansgar chuckled. "You seem to be missing the big picture here. Three years ago, a god was brought to us through the Tesseract, one who declared war on our planet. And then it brought his army. Creatures that managed to take hold of of the largest city in the world in a matter of an hour."
"The Chitauri and Loki were defeated by the Avengers."
"Rather the city was defended by the Avengers."
"Isn't it all the same thing?"
"Of course it's not," Ansgar spat. "We were playing the defensive. They came to us. If there is any other forms of life out there, they know we can defend ourselves. But we need to show them what happens when we take the offensive."
"So that's what this is about? You want to start a war that doesn't need to be started?"
"It's a war that never finished. Who's to say they won't come back? Who's to say that someone else from beyond the stars won't attack? If we bring the fight to them, we can show that we are superior."
"Well who's to say that trying to attack one or another alien species won't anger them? We're trying to keep the peace, not threaten it."
"It's already been threatened you fool!" Ansgar was angered now. "Don't you see? We now know there are forces out there, forces that have the power to bring mankind to it's knees. If we attack them on their home turf, they'll see us as the superior lifeforms we are."
"Not to put a dent in your plan, but if we could take on an army of highly advanced alien lifeforms, we wouldn't need the Avengers."
"That's why we need to give ourselves the edge." Ansgar litfed his arms which had the sleeves roll up to reveal long strips of metal attached to the bottom of his forearms."
"It's Centipede!" Skye yelled. Hiro did notice the metal strips resembled centipedes. It was filled with some sort of bright bluish-green that didn't look safe.
"That's not Extremis," May said. Everyone was backing up now, away from Ansgar.
"I am detecting a large amount of harmful chemicals inside of this man's body," Baymax said.
"No, not necessarily dangerous," Ansgar said, walking closer to the team. "Extremis was flawed, too dangerous for human use. But this," Ansgar looked to his arms, "this gives power without consequence. It's a remastered formula of Dr. Curt Connors' lizard serum." The word 'lizard' caught Hiro's attention. Lucas was covered with scales when they had found them in Miami. And the body in the underground lab as well. Hiro had heard of Dr. Connors. He injected himself with a formula that turned him into a giant lizard. That's what HYDRA had been doing in Miami. They were trying to recreate the lazard serum. That would explain why Ansgar was able to kill that S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with ease.
Ansgar continued to speak. "We never could get it quite right. But, this was a close second. This is how we will take the offensive against extraterrestrial forces. This is how the human race will gain victory." Ansgar tapped a few buttons on both of the Centipede bots… then things got ugly.
Ansgars skin was becoming a strange teal color, much like the color of the lizard serum. Scales seemed to be popping out all over his body, and his fingernails were elongating into claws.
"Take him down!" Coulson yelled. Coulson, Skye, May, and the rest of the soldiers were now raining bullets down on Ansgar's transforming body. A normal person would have been killed by that. But Ansgar wasn't a normal person anymore.
When he rose, the bullets popped out of his body, and freshly formed skin replaces the bullet wounds that were once in his body. Ansgar stood about a good nine feet tall, and was covered head to toe in teal scales. He had now grown a large tail that was wiggling around like it had a mind of it's own. Creepy. His head was the strangest thing. It looked like a lizard's except for the large frills on the side of his head. He didn't exactly look like a lizard. He looked like a… hydra.
"This is what mankind was always destined to be!" Ansgar yelled, his voices sounding much deeper now. He was slowly walking towards the team as they were firing on him. The bullets sunk right into his skin, but then were immediately popped out as new skin began to form. "Dr. Connors was on to something. If we brought soldiers like this against enemy forces, we couldn't be stopped. Our Earth would be protected from supernatural threats, and you're trying to slow that process!" He swung around and his tail lashed out. It knocked into three of the soldiers, and they went flying over the rail, and fell into the larger part of the lab where the portal device was.
"You can't stop me," Ansgar said as if he were amused by his own violence. Upon his saying this, a strange noise could be heard coming from the portal device. Hiro whipped around, and saw a black circle with a blue outline forming on the inside of the portal's O shape. The black inkiness of what looked like space was now now in the center of the portal device. "It's too late."
Hiro wasn't focused on Ansgar now, and neither was anyone else. All of their eyes were glued to the expanding opening that look as though it led directly into space itself. Space. That think actually led into space. Then Hiro remembered what he saw in the news about New York, and was horrified with what was to come next. Ansgar meant to stir up trouble in there, and Hiro feared what he would do in there.
But he mostly feared what was going to come out.
(A/N) Yeah, this one's a bit shorter than usual. Sue me. I didn't want to pack everything into one chapter, and this was the result. So the portal device and the Tesseract energy was a way to really combine these two universes, and make it into something awesome. Yes I know the Lizard is Spider Man, but I had that part planned since I started this story, and I wasn't giving up on them fighting Ansgar the hydra. You see what I did there? Those who feel like Baymax hasn't played a significant role in this story, just you wait. That's DaydreamDepartment out of your hair! ;)