More and more steam from broken machinery and plumbing covered the dark hallways of Hydra's main lab, giving the eerie illusion of fog in this already nightmarish facility. Screams and dying groans from many Hydra scientists could clearly be heard over the mechanical sounds all around. The atmosphere of this place was chilling, and at the same time, felt hot from how much humidity was building within. The super soldier tried to watch his footing, walking across grates and hidden obstructions that constantly threatened his forward movement. The hallway into the main lab was long and ominous as it began to slope downwards towards another door. Steve's stomach began to turn as he could hear a cold exchange between one of the doomed scientists and Madame Hydra.
"....please....help....too many.....can't get out," somebody groaned out of the loudspeaker.
"What is that infernal racket?" she yelled annoyed.
Heading through another security door, Steve entered the main part of the lab where a number of hellish sights awaited his unwilling eyes. Dozens of mutilated bodies lied all over the once pristine tiled floors that adorned the labs. Many of the working lights had been shattered to pieces, with their glass scattered all over the floors. Water was leaking all over the floor from somewhere nearby, mixing in with pools of blood and oil from nearby broken consoles to make a murky liquid that stained most of the tiles.
"Hydra soldiers," Steve stated fearfully. "I have a feeling it wasn't our boys that did all of this..."
Circling around the lab, Steve found a lowered floor where six human sized capsules were mounted into the wall. All of them were busted open from the inside as Steve followed the burnt trail marks of their former occupants with his eyes across the floor and deeper into the lab. The mystery experiments left behind a trail of more broken bodies and rubble.
"Attention all laboratory personnel. There is a code 12 evacuation in progress. Follow all standard protocols." an automated voice announced.
Further in, Steve ran into four of Hydra's scientists running from something terrifying. Suddenly, Steve jumped back when he saw them being levitated into the air and then thrown against the walls with so much force that their bones were instantly shattered upon impact. Holding his shield at the ready, Steve was finally faced with one of his mysterious new adversaries. It was an unnaturally thin man covered from head to toe in black leather and all manner of hi tech mechanical implants grafted into his body. A thick metal helmet covered what used to be his face and the rest of his skull. The only thing presumably allowing the figure some form of sight was a single large glowing eye that stared into his soul. A familiar emblem was emblazoned across the figure's chest as he started twitching and sparking in a menacing manner. Steve instantly recognized it as the emblem of Arnim Zola's Master Mann Project.
The figure held out his arms and a glowing red aura similar to Firebrand's magical grasp appeared from its gauntlets.
Charging right at the mysterious assailant turned out to be a particularly bad idea. As Steve found himself being hit by one of the figure's magical blasts and thrown back all the way across the room. Luckily, Steve hit some fencing that separated the capsule floor from the other raised lab stations. He had only a second to react before the disfigured man threw another volley of magical blasts at the American. Weaving through the room, and avoiding more hits, the room started to fall apart even more as it was torn apart by magic and fire. The man took a few seconds to recharge, which gave Steve an ample opportunity to close the distance and start wailing on the man with his strongest punches. It quickly recovered as the man tried lashing at Steve with his mechanical gauntlets. Weaving under the strike, Steve whipped around and knocked the man out with a blow to the back of the neck.
Gazing down at the man, Steve felt a sense of impending doom and dread begin to fall over him like a dark storm cloud hanging over his head.
"This used to be somebody. A man. I need to find Firebrand and the others NOW."
The path deeper into the lab became more chaotic and destructive as the further he got in. Sections of the cavern the lab was built into were showing as the walls started falling off. It would only be a matter of time before the lab no longer would be able to support the thousands of tons of rock and metal surrounding it. As if things weren't getting worse already, Steve could see a large skirmish between two of the "experiments" and a group of Wardens and officers who were attempting to subdue them. The experiments were throwing red magic blasts at everything, only adding to the damage happening to the building. The soldiers were fighting a losing battle as even the Wardens were being tossed around like rag dolls. A feeling Steve didn't like started to creep in even more as he recognized the specific color of the energy that the experiments were using for the attacks.
Just like before, he waited until the experiments needed time to recharge, and then he closed in for four consecutive attacks. One in the chest to stun the first and then an uppercut to the chin with his shield. The second he knocked down and then used his knee to smash the experiment's chest piece.
"Attention, all laboratory personnel. The Super Soldier has been spotted in the upper labs. You have one minute to reach emergency exits before you are sealed inside the labs. If you should fail, know that you died in the service of Hydra." someone announced.
'That wouldn't exactly be a comfort to anyone' Steve wryly thought.
Taking a brief glance at the room around him, Steve found himself in what appeared to be the remains of an infirmary of some kind. The once spotless white rooms were dirty and battered and the beds on either side were completely matted and torn apart. Up against one of the walls was some kind of work station with all manner of medical tools such as bottles of iodine and rubbing alcohol, and even a set of scalpels which still were covered in blood. Covering the middle of the workstation was another one of Hydra's secret blueprints. The pictures on it were of the experiments that Zola had been working on in this laboratory. Some notes on the blue prints had been redacted, and other new notes had been added on, speaking of new abilities from "Subject Red's" DNA. The name of the experiments were written across the top in German. Screihals. Which Steve roughly translated to the eerie name of Screamer. For a moment, Steve's hand's began to shake in fear, but he quickly caught himself as he folded up the schematic and placed it into his pouch.
He quickly made his way out of the infirmary area as he came to more narrow passageways leading in different directions. He didn't know why, but something in his senses were telling him to take the route further up into the labs. The path continued upwards for hundreds of feet until he ran into another sealed security door.
While he quickly began decoding the control panel Madame Hydra sent out an announcement over the intercom in an attempt to console her master.
"Herr Zola, I am forced to evacuate. YOU! Untie the English one, he's healthier...leave the other one and the pony to the creatures. I want an armored escort. AND SOMEBODY GET THAT BLOODY LIFT WORKING NOW!"
On the other side, the lab became more bare as different pathways branched off into larger parts of the cavern. Straight ahead, was another large laboratory chamber surrounded by a multitude of consoles, scientific instruments and surgical tables. One in particular that stood up held a familiar figure. It was Steve's new friend and team member, Dugan who had been captured by Hydra half a day earlier. A large group of soldiers and two of the Screamers had gathered around Dugan. The laboratory platform was separated by a large gap and a long winding path that Steve had no time to use.
"DUGAN!"
He took his chance as he launched over the railing and leaped to the platform on the other side. In that moment, Steve realized that he had ran into a full scale skirmish between a platoon of Hydra soldiers and Screamers who were trying to suck the life out of Dugan using the familiar red magical energy. Taking the advantage of the distraction, Steve snuck in close to the Screamers while they were preoccupied with the other soldiers on the platform.
Unfortunately, one of them quickly detected his presence as they tried using their powerful abilities to wrench his shield from his grasp.
The magical aura was blazing hot to his skin, even under layers of his resilient suit. It forced him to bite through the burning he was beginning to feel as he ripped his shield away. His strength over-exerted the Screamer's power, forcing it into a cooldown period. Which gave Steve time to whip around and axe kick the Screamer in the back of the neck. A Warden tried to sneak up on him while he was thoroughly distracted, but Steve grabbed ahold of the leg of the Screamer and used it as a flail. Dazing the Warden long enough for him to take it out with a single uppercut under the jaw.
Now that the immediate threats had been taken care of, he tended to Dugan's bindings. The man seemed to have all manner of injuries all over his body. Including places where Hydra had injected him with various substances. The first thing he ripped off was a leather strap covering his eyes.
"Hold still Dugan I'll have you out in a sec."
"I'm sure glad to see you Cap." he laughed weakly.
"Are you alright?"
"Only my pride seems to be hurt. Those Hydra devils are gonna get it when I get my hands around their necks."
"Do you know where they took Firebrand and Falsworth?" he asked hopefully.
The man's eyes gave Steve a look of pity as he looked off somewhere. Steve didn't like that look one bit.
"Falswoth was right by me on the table over there before that evil witch Madame Hydra got scared of the alarms, drugged him and took him off somewhere. God knows what they were gonna do to him. We could hear screams coming from a lab further in, but we didn't think of the possibility that it might be....."
Steve clenched his fist in anger as dark thoughts began to creep into his mind.
"DAMNIT!!!!" he swore as he angrily punched a dent into a nearby pillar. "Which way?"
"Over there." Dugan said as he pointed towards a stairway that lead into another lab.
"Im gonna look for Firebrand. Then we need to take out the Pulse Cannon that shot you and Falsworth down before we can go after him."
"Oh no, if the kid is here, I'm gonna help you turn whoever is keeping him into colored rain," Dugan said menacingly. "And I’ve got this sexy little girl as back up."
To prove his point, he picked up a Juggernaut's energy cannon and blasted his operating table to smoldering smithereens.
Steve was reluctant to accept his help but nodded nonetheless as they sprinted up the side tunnel and made their way into the secondary laboratory area.
Firebrand started to stir once again as he felt it exceedingly difficult to breathe. The feeling was foreign and frightening to him as he tried to inhale, but couldn't. Moving so much as an inch was next to impossible as well. Every time he even twitched, more and more feeling would leave his limbs. His terror only heightened when he heard an evil weezing right above his face and felt something like freezing cold air being sucked into a vacuum. He opened his eyes and tried to scream at what he saw, but couldn't.
It was a single evil yellow eye above a decaying old mouth, sucking his magic out of him. Every ounce of his strength and being was being drained away by this demonic creature.
Firebrand didn't have much of a life yet. At least not one that he was aware of. It hurt him greatly that he might not get the chance to live a good life with a father and mother who loved him dearly. Steve and Peggy may not have been the same species, but already they have come to mean the world to him.
He tried to gather as much magical strength as he could to push the figure away, but then slumped as he lost all feeling in his body. So much so that he wasn't aware of a shield knocking back the head of said figure or a man wearing a star spangled uniform snatching him up before a cannon blast vaporized him. In his extensively weakened state, he could faintly hear hundreds of different explosions all around him, the sound of metal against metal, and the disturbing sound of breaking bones. Not knowing that it was an enraged father and his teammate killing everything in sight and destroying the lab that had brought him so much pain and suffering.
This angry father had tolerated Hydra's evils for the last time and he was not going to show them any mercy.
The last thing Firebrand could barely comprehend was the sound of an elevator coming down a shaft before he slipped back into unconsciousness for the third time.