Chapter 106: Tony completely depressed: Why does he have everything?
The cold fluorescent lights in the laboratory emitted a faint humming sound.
This sound appeared exceptionally harsh in the deep of night, like tiny steel needles scratching against the eardrums.
Tony Stark sat on the bar stool originally used to debug Ultron.
In his hand, he clenched an unlabeled bottle of Scotch whisky, his fingertips turning pale and bluish from excessive force.
A layer of cold sweat hung on the bottle body, and water droplets seeped through the web of his thumb into his cuff.
That damp feeling made him shiver with cold.
"Jarvis."
Tony called out instinctively.
The laboratory was dead silent.
There was no response in that gentle British accent, only the sound of the wind pouring in through the damaged skylight.
He abruptly twitched the corners of his mouth in self-deprecation, a hoarse, dry laugh escaping his throat.
Jarvis had already been torn to pieces by that monster called Ultron.
And that Ultron, which had almost destroyed the surface of the earth, was now staying in Aaron's apartment's utility room.
Probably surrounding a pile of moldy mops, obsessing over the carbon content of the dust there.
"Ding."
Tony hooked his index finger and flicked the empty porcelain cup in front of him.
A crisp sound.
He stared at the sloshing amber liquid in the cup, ice cubes colliding against the inner wall, stirring up rings of bitter ripples.
On the table lay the scepter that Aaron had casually crushed.
The golden plating had peeled off, revealing the dusty gray metal material inside.
That was a sacred relic regarded as a deity by HYDRA.
In Aaron's hands, it was as brittle as a wafer biscuit left out for too long.
Tony closed his eyes.
His mind was filled with the moment Vision knelt down.
That streak of dark red Vibranium body, those were perfect cells that he might not be able to synthesize even if he exhausted his entire life.
Yet in front of Aaron, that divine life lowered its head.
Not just lowering its head.
Vision addressed Aaron as "Master".
Those two words felt like a heavy hammer, smashing Tony's proud Stark Industries into ruins.
"Hey, Tony."
Steady footsteps came from behind.
Steve Rogers was wearing that washed-out T-shirt, carrying two compressed ration bars in his hand.
His shield leaned against the shelf behind the door, the five-pointed star on it somewhat dim under the lights.
Tony didn't look back, pouring another mouthful of hard liquor down his throat.
The spicy sensation burned all the way from his esophagus to his stomach, prompting a trace of physiological tears to well up at the corners of his eyes.
"You should go to sleep, Captain. An elderly person's biological clock is precious."
"We won, Tony."
Steve walked up to the front table, holding down Tony's hand that was still pouring wine, "Ultron has stopped, there are no casualties, and Sokovia's civilians don't even know their country almost flew into the sky."
"Won?"
Tony abruptly pushed Steve's hand away.
The wine bottle struck a loud crash on the alloy tabletop, amber liquid splashing out and dripping down the table cracks.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Every single sound seemed to be counting the inferiority throbbing in Tony's chest.
"Steve, do you call this winning?"
Tony turned around, pointing his finger at his own chest, his voice cracking slightly.
"I created a monster, and then another monster turned it into a floor scrubber."
"I wanted to create a god, and as a result, that god became someone else's butler."
Tony staggered to his feet, pointing at the Manhattanskyline outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
There, the top floor of Stark Tower was still brightly lit.
Aaron was probably lying on a rocking chair, listening to the sound of the Mind Stone striking the brass tubes.
"That's the Mind Stone, Steve! That's energy enough to destroy galaxies!"
Tony's hands were shaking, his fingernails digging into his palms, leaving a few bloody Marks.
"He hung it on the balcony as a wind chime."
"In his eyes, the things we painstakingly protect, fight over, or even regard as faith..."
"Are just toys used to pass the time."
Steve fell silent.
He remembered how Aaron casually peeled open the shell of the stone back in the laboratory just now.
That casualness made a veteran like him, who had experienced World War II and witnessed countless sacrifices, feel an ultimate sense of absurdity.
"What is the meaning of our existence?"
Tony slammed his fist onto the console.
The aluminum alloy plate of the console was battered with a shallow dent, its edges depressed.
"The Avengers? To deal with threats?"
"As long as he is around, all threats in his eyes are just flies disturbing his afternoon nap."
Tony sat back down on the bar stool, curling himself up into a ball.
His eyes, known as the smartest of all mankind, were filled with murky frustration at this moment.
He found that his technology was a joke in front of Aaron.
Artificial intelligence was a joke.
Even the Mark armor on his body, feared in Aaron's eyes, was probably just a glowing tin can.
"Why does he have everything?"
Tony murmured lowly, his voice somewhat blurred by the alcohol.
"He doesn't even have to work hard, doesn't have to spend hundreds of all-nighters in the laboratory like me..."
Steve sighed.
He didn't try to persuade him.
He knew this wasn't just Tony's personal depression.
The pride of all mankind had already shattered all over the ground with a mere wave of Aaron's hand.
The holographic monitors in the laboratory were still flickering.
The defensive protocols left by the Red Queen occasionally flashed a trace of dark red light.
That was a Mark left by Aaron.
Like some kind of charity, or like some kind of declaration of sovereignty.
Tony stared at that splash of red.
He found that he didn't even have the courage to resent that red color.
Because as long as he tried to analyze that piece of code, the computer would instantly smoke from being unable to bear that massive computing power.
This all-encompassing, suffocating crushing defeat.
Made him feel like a primitive man playing with flint next to a nuclear reactor.
"Glug."
Tony drank the last drop of wine in the bottle.
He pushed the empty bottle aside.
The glass collided and rolled next to the trash can, which was piled high with scrapped sensors.
Outside the Avengers Base, New York's nightscape was fading.
The light before dawn carried a grayish chill.
Tony stood up, intending to go wash his face.
He passed the television hanging on the wall, his fingertips casually swiping across the sensor area.
He originally wanted to listen to some noisy heavy metal music to cover up the dead silence in his heart.
The TV screen lit up.
It wasn't the music channel.
But a breaking commercial news broadcast.
"Now broadcasting a flash news report."
A reporter stood in front of a streamlined building, which was the Pym Technologies headquarters in San Francisco.
"The founder of Pym Technologies, Dr. Hank Pym, officially announced his retirement this morning."
The screen image switched.
An old man with white hair and beard, with a somewhat eccentric and arrogant expression, appeared on camera.
He refused all interviews, only staring coldly at the camera as if looking at a group of thieves.
"At the same time, Dr. Pym announced the launch of a special selection program."
The reporter pointed to the venue being set up behind him.
"Aiming to find a successor capable of inheriting the core technology of Pym Technologies and mastering a certain 'next-generation equipment'."
"It is reported that this selection named 'Ant-Man' has attracted top Agents and professionals from around the globe."
Tony stopped his footsteps.
He stared at the old man named Hank Pym in the screen.
And looked at the sketches of the so-called "next-generation equipment".
In this era where deities casually crush gems.
It seemed that there were still some people trying to find a final resistance force belonging to Mortals through those tiny atomic gaps.
Tony twitched the corners of his mouth.
He took out a new bottle of wine again, his thumb flicking open the cap.
Click.
The image on the TV was shaking.
Among the group of candidates waiting in line for interviews.
A man who had just come out of prison, with somewhat evasive eyes yet a hint of resilience, was nervously tugging at his collar.
Scott Lang.
Tony watched the television, his eyes hollow.
And in Manhattan, thousands of miles away.
Aaron turned over, continuing his Nth afternoon nap in this World.
Chapter 107: Dr. Pym's Ant-Man Suit? Unlocking the Quantum Amplifier
The sky outside the window was that grayish lead-blue color.
Manhattan's neon lights blurred in the drizzle, like a few strokes of cheap oil paint smeared on frosted glass.
Aaron sank into the velvet recliner.
He held a peeled green grape in his hand, his fingertips stained with a bit of cool juice.
On the 8K holographic screen in front of him, a business news brief was scrolling repeatedly.
The old man Hank Pym in the footage was sneering at the camera from over the shoulders of the security personnel.
That wrinkled face was full of sarcasm and distrust toward the World.
"Pym Technologies' selection... Ant-Man?"
Aaron tossed the green grape into his mouth and chewed it up.
The sweet and refreshing juice exploded on the tip of his tongue.
He stared at a wanted poster photo sliding across the screen.
That was Scott Lang.
A man who looked somewhat awkward when smiling, but whose eyes were piercingly bright.
"Growing bigger and smaller?"
Aaron wiped away the leftover liquid at the corner of his lips with the back of his hand.
This technology of casually kneading material space was indeed a bit more interesting than Tony's mindset of only stacking iron armor.
But it was limited to "interesting".
He could see through the essence of Pym Particles.
That was a chemical agent that changed the distance between atoms.
In Aaron's view, this method was as clunky as trimming hair with a saw.
Once the proportions were out of whack, a person would get trapped in the coffee foam Aaron had left over from earlier.
"Red Queen, are the System points enough to draw a celebration blind box once?"
Aaron closed his eyes and knocked on that long-dormant interface in his Sea of Consciousness.
"Master, because you 'renovated' the Dark Dimension and successfully subdued Ultron."
"The current points balance has overflowed. It is recommended to open the version 1.0 anniversary limited blind box."
Aaron's fingers tapped lightly on the armrest.
Click.
The sound of his fingernails hitting the solid wood was very crisp.
"Open it. Let's see what kind of different toys the version update can give."
In the Sea of Consciousness, a pitch-black box with dark golden runes flowing along its edges slowly pulled open.
There was no such blinding glare, only a sense of calm similar to gravity suddenly collapsing.
That was the movement of space being forcibly compacted by some higher will.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for opening the anniversary blind box.]
[Obtained Divine Rank item: Quantum-level Spacetime Amplifier (Conceptual Version).]
[Note: This item does not rely on Pym Particles. It directly modifies the object's "existence weight".]
Aaron's palm sank.
A palm-sized, translucent black crystal Rubik's cube appeared in his hand.
Inside the Rubik's cube, there were no mechanical parts, only countless dim blue light points rotating like Nebula.
It felt slightly cool to the touch.
That chill burrowed into his blood vessels along his palm, making Aaron's spirit perk up.
"Existence weight?"
Aaron fiddled with this Rubik's cube, his fingertips sliding across its mirror-smooth edges.
The logic of this thing was much more Advanced than Pym Particles.
Pym Particles changed size.
While this amplifier told the Universe: This thing now only takes up this much space.
This meant that...
Even if Aaron shrank a tank into a marble.
Its mass, inertia, and even energy levels during an explosion would be tightly locked into the marble-sized space by this layer of logic.
There would be no collapsed black holes, nor any out-of-control gravity.
"I need to find a place to try it out."
Aaron stood up.
He stepped barefoot on the wool carpet, and the feel of his toes sinking into the fibers was warm and soft.
Wanda was sitting not far away reading a book, her long red hair covering half her face.
She noticed Aaron's movement and looked up for a glance.
"Going out?"
"Going to pick up a model by the roadside."
Aaron replied casually.
He pushed open the floor-to-ceiling window, and the evening breeze mixed with the damp smell of grass and trees crashed into the living room.
The red magic circle shrank into a point under his feet, and then his whole person disappeared into the clouds.
...
In the suburbs of Manhattan, an abandoned dock warehouse.
Everywhere here were rusted gantry cranes and shipping containers piled high with rust.
The air was full of the smell of rotting seaweed and the pungent feeling of cheap diesel.
Aaron stopped in front of an abandoned twelve-story office building.
Half of the tiles on the building's exterior wall had fallen off, like a piece of rotten wood with white spots.
The glass windows were all shattered, and the pitch-black window frames were like a dead man's eye sockets.
He pulled the black crystal Rubik's cube out of his pocket.
"Red Queen, synchronize data."
"Command confirmed, locking onto the target mass model."
Aaron leveled his right hand.
The dim blue Nebula in the center of the Rubik's cube suddenly lit up.
A gray ripple invisible to the naked eye, like an invisible wave circle, instantly swept across the entire building.
Creak—
The subtle sound of metal twisting sounded.
This sound was not harsh; instead, it carried the crisp sound of wood burning in a fireplace.
In that dead wasteland.
The twelve-story office building began to collapse like origami.
There was no dust, no loud noise.
The walls closed in toward the center, and the roof folded downward.
Under Aaron's gaze, the space originally occupied by the building rapidly collapsed and condensed.
Three seconds later.
The originally towering structure disappeared.
In its place, only an empty foundation pit remained.
Above Aaron's palm hovered an exquisite miniature model about ten centimeters tall.
That was the building from just now.
Even the rust on the window frames and the broken chairs collapsed in the hallway were perfectly preserved.
It emitted a faint shimmering light, lying quietly in the palm of Aaron's hand.
Aaron reached out and touched the top of the model.
The touch was hard.
It was no longer a building, but an "object" recognized by the Universe as being only ten centimeters in size.
"This is much more convenient."
Aaron casually stuffed the miniature building into the pocket of his hoodie.
He thought that if he wanted to move in the future, or felt that some scenic spot was too far away, he could just pack up the land and take it away.
He turned around and looked at the forest in the distance.
That was a secret Base recently renovated by S.H.I.E.L.D.and the Avengers.
Tony Stark hid quite a bit of so-called "next-generation" electronic junk there.
Aaron suddenly wanted to go and take a look.
To see if that Genius, who was beaten into depression by Ultron, had come up with any new tricks lately besides heavy drinking.
...
Meanwhile.
At the Avengers Base, the northern ventilation duct.
A figure roughly the size of an ant was moving rapidly along the intricate exhaust pipes.
Scott Lang wore that black and red Ant-Man Suit.
The breathing sound inside the helmet was heavy, carrying a sense of urgency of having survived a disaster.
"Scott, can you hear me?"
The elderly and irritable voice of old man Hank Pym came through the earpiece.
"Don't touch those glowing sensors. Although Tony Starkis arrogant, his alarm System is designed to military standards."
"I know, old man."
Scott squatted on a huge fan blade.
For his current size, this blade was like a cross-sea bridge.
"I'm just here to steal that signal decoy, and I'll leave once I get it."
He slid down a pitch-black cable.
The sound of the soles of his feet stepping on the metal corridor was so faint that even the sensors couldn't detect it.
He grew larger by half an inch, flipped over, and jumped into a half-open laboratory.
This place was filled with energy modules that Tony hadn't had time to process yet.
Light blue light circulated in the petri dishes.
Scott just wanted to reach out to grab that target part.
He suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
That feeling was like being tightly locked onto the back of his head by some large predator from a few kilometers away.
He turned his head sharply, but because his size was too small, his vision could only see the ground.
He saw a pair of grayish-white flat leather boots.
The soles of the boots were clean, without a shred of muddy water.
But the appearance of these feet here was in itself a huge unreasonableness.
This was the most core restricted area of the Avengers, where even a fly coming in had to be scanned three times.
Scott subconsciously pressed the shrink button.
His body shrank again.
Turning into micro-particles almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
He held his breath, trying to use the suit's electromagnetic shielding function to fade away in the shadow of those feet.
But those feet didn't move.
Not even a wrinkle on the skin twitched.
"Old man Pym's experiment?"
A voice fell from directly above his head.
Lazy, bland.
To Scott in the microscopic World, that sound sounded like a series of muffled thunders exploding beside his eardrums.
Aaron was standing in the center of the laboratory.
He was still holding that unfinished can of cola in his hand.
Lowering his head, his gaze accurately fell on the floor tile gap where Scott was hiding.
"Hiding in the gap."
Aaron extended his left hand and flicked his index finger lightly in the air.
"Are you waiting for me to treat you to afternoon tea?"
Scott, hiding in the microscopic World, discovered with horror that...
The airflow whipped up by that finger, right in front of him...
turned out to be like...
Enough to tear the clouds apart...
Hurricane.
Chapter 108: Second-Generation Ant-Man Scott Kicked Away by Aaron with a Single Kick
The field of vision in the crack of the floor tiles was completely different from usual.
Scott Lang was lying flat on the floor.
He looked up through the compound-eye visor of his miniature helmet.
In front of him, that pair of off-white flat leather boots was no longer ordinary shoes.
They were two gigantic mountain ranges spanning the end of the World, exuding the smell of leather.
The stitching on the side of the soles was as thick as thick cables under the microscopic perspective.
"Hank, he found me."
Scott lowered his voice, his throat filled with a dry, tense feeling.
He growled in the communication channel, sweat streaming down his temples into his collar, damp and wet.
"Impossible."
In the earpiece, Hank Pym's voice carried a hint of impatient hoarseness.
The old man was currently sitting in a laboratory several kilometers away, staring at the infrared hotspots on the screen.
"You are only three millimeters tall right now, unless he has microscope-level pupils."
"He is just a subordinate of Stark, dressed like a college student. Take the decoy and retreat."
Scott stared overhead.
Aaron was holding a cola can.
Gulp.
The sound of swallowing fell into Scott's ears like actual rumbling thunder rolling past.
The wind started blowing in the air.
That was the airflow stirred up by Aaron's breathing, which turned into a category 12 hurricane in the microscopic World.
Scott had to hook the powerful suction cups on his limbs tightly into the metal gaps.
He felt that his combat suit was making creaking sounds under this wind pressure.
Aaron lowered his head.
In those black eyes of his, there was no anxiety of searching.
He was just staring at the floor tiles, as if looking at a speck of dust.
"Old man Pym, the successor you found isn't very courageous."
Aaron spoke.
The voice pierced through the air, vibrating Scott's visor with a hum.
That sound wave was like a solid wall, pushing Scott back half a centimeter.
Scott's heart was almost about to shatter his ribs.
This was definitely not an ordinary Stark employee.
From those eyes, he felt a certain illusion of being locked onto by God.
That was a trial that transcended dimensions.
"No matter who he is!"
Hank Pym roared in the earpiece, his voice changing pitch.
"Scott, counterattack! Use your speed to attack his joints!"
"Grow large, then shrink instantly. Don't let him react!"
Scott gritted his teeth.
The hardest job he had ever done in his life was infiltrating a consortium's vault.
But now, he felt that pair of leather boots was ten thousand times heavier than the vault door.
He pressed the miniature trigger on his right-hand handle.
Catapult launch.
Scott exerted strength with both legs, and the thruster port on the back of his battle armor spat out a trace of extremely thin blue fire.
He was like a tiny bullet, pulling out a red line that the naked eye could not capture.
The target was Aaron's ankle.
According to his experience,
As long as he collided with the opponent's tendon, coordinated with the gravitational inertia of growing larger instantly,
This young man wearing a shirt would fall down like a chopped-down wooden stake.
"Die!"
Scott shouted in his heart.
He was already less than one millimeter away from that layer of leather.
However.
Aaron didn't even change his gaze.
Within his conceptual-level perception Domain, even a quantum-level flea...
...was crawling as if in water full of paste.
Aaron did not raise his hand.
He simply raised his right foot, moving very slowly.
It was like wanting to kick away a dead leaf blocking the way while taking a walk in the garden.
But in Scott's field of vision, the sky went dark.
That leather boot plowed a terrifying arc in the atmosphere.
The surrounding air was forcibly compressed, forming a transparent shockwave cloud.
That was a physical trampling that surpassed the speed of sound.
"Fuck..."
Scott only had time to spit out a single word.
Bang!
A muffled sound.
It was not the sound of hitting flesh, but the noise of solid metal colliding against stainless steel.
Aaron didn't even use even ten percent of his strength.
He just casually gave a flick.
Scott was like a deflected baseball.
He drew a sharp straight line in the air, and even his shrunk state produced electromagnetic flickering due to the violent collision.
Clang!
A stainless steel trash can ten meters away shook violently.
A coin-sized pit dented on the wall of the bucket.
A burst of hurried rolling sounds came from inside.
Finally, everything returned to silence.
Aaron retracted his foot and lowered his head to look.
A little bit of red-and-black painted leather was stained on the toe of his shoe.
He rubbed it somewhat distastefully on the metal rack on the side.
"Good technique, but the candidate chosen is too terrible."
In the distance, inside Hank Pym's laboratory,
After a burst of intense snow dots, the signal on the screen completely disconnected.
The last image transmitted back was Aaron's face, as cold as ice, directly facing the camera.
Hank Pym smashed a fist onto the console.
The solid wood corner of the table cracked and broke.
The coffee cup in his hand fell to the ground and rolled a few times.
The warm liquid splashed onto that set of precision sensor cables, sending up a string of blue smoke.
"He saw me..."
Hank Pym collapsed into the chair, his fingertips trembling.
His breathing was rapid, and his pupils were filled with that lingering red light.
He loathed Stark, but he stood in awe of this monster that transcended logic.
That was not a Mutant.
Nor was it any enhanced soldier.
That was a deity who could casually trample his scientific dignity underfoot.
"Dad, what happened?"
A capable female voice sounded at the doorway.
Hope Van Dyne was wearing a black business suit, holding a report in her hands.
Seeing the messy laboratory all over the floor, her brows knitted together.
Hank Pym did not answer.
He was just staring at the very last frame on the screen.
That was Aaron slightly raising his hand, as if in a posture of grabbing over along the signal source.
"We... provoked someone we shouldn't have provoked."
Hank's voice was hoarse, as if it had been ground on sandpaper.
"Scott didn't come back. He didn't even last a single second."
Hope walked over and picked up the shattered coffee cup.
She looked at Aaron in the surveillance playback.
In the footage, that man was leisurely drinking a sip of cola, casually stuffing that shrunk office building into his pocket.
That action was as natural as putting away a box of business cards.
"Stark doesn't know this person."
Hope stared at Aaron's face, her knuckles turning white from exerting force.
"There is no name of his in the files of the Avengers."
"But he could discover Scott in the microscopic World... This means our technology is transparent in front of him."
Hank Pym closed his eyes, his chest heaving.
He thought of that kick just now.
That was the greatest humiliation to Pym Technologies, and also the heaviest warning.
If the opponent were willing, that kick could have stomped Scott along with his entire combat suit into meat patties.
"He took away that entire building."
Hank whispered softly.
"He is not stealing things. He is harvesting."
Hope put down the report.
She walked to the window and looked towards the direction of Manhattan.
On the skyline there, Stark Tower was exuding a cold metallic luster.
She knew that if this man continued to "harvest" like this...
Pym Technologies would become the next Lego block disappearing into history.
"We can't wait anymore."
Hope's voice was very clear, yet carried a trace of resolute determination.
"I'll make a trip to Manhattan."
"What do you want to do?"
Hank raised his head abruptly, his eyes filled with panic.
"You've witnessed his methods! That's a madman who treats Dormammu as a buffet!"
"That's why we are going to beg him."
Hope turned around and took down the yellow combat suit that had not been fully tested yet from the shelf.
"Not as an enemy, but as... an affiliate."
"If Pym Technologies is destined to disappear, I Hope it is merged into the territory of a deity, rather than being kicked away like trash."
She pressed the contraction button of the battle suit.
A red light flashed.
Inside the laboratory, only Hank Pym's heavy panting remained.
At this moment, the Manhattan penthouse apartment.
Aaron carried the trash can containing Scott and walked to the edge of the balcony.
He lowered his head to look at the poor wretch inside who was still unconscious and fluctuating in size due to a suit malfunction.
"Red Queen, check the financial status of Pym Technologies."
Aaron's tone was casual, his fingertips flicking lightly on that black Tesseract.
"I think that old man should be ready to send the seal over by now."
The wind swept past from high altitude.
A faint yellow light was rapidly approaching here along the edge of the clouds.
Aaron leaned against the railing.
He saw that trace of light.
And he also saw the final struggle and submission of Pym Technologies.
Chapter 109: Hope the Wasp's
A thick layer of cumulonimbus clouds weighed down upon the high altitudes of Manhattan.
Fine water droplets hung on the railing of the apartment balcony.
Aaron curled a finger and tapped gently on the edge of that stainless steel trash can.
"Clang——"
The dull sound dissipated in the wind.
Scott, shrunk to the size of a mung bean at the bottom of the can, was still snoring.
With that kick just now, Aaron had held back his strength, but the suit's shock buffer clearly couldn't keep up with this dimensionality-reducing level of impact.
"Hum——"
An extremely thin streak of yellow light drilled in through a gap in the rain curtain.
The point of light suddenly magnified three meters in front of Aaron.
The air was forcibly pushed aside, emitting a "crackling" sound similar to a static electricity explosion.
Hope van Dyne appeared.
The yellow suit on her body hadn't had time to retract its translucent wings yet.
The metal faceplate of the helmet slid upward, revealing a face soaked in cold sweat.
She didn't stand steadily, or perhaps she hadn't intended to stand steadily.
Her knees slammed heavily onto the plush rug under Aaron's feet.
With a "thud".
The sound was muffled, yet one could hear the heavy impact of bones hitting the ground.
Hope knelt there, her palms digging fiercely into the expensive carpet fibers.
She lowered her head, her fine short hair covering her eyes.
The skin at her neck flushed with redness brought on by extreme tension.
"Mr. Aaron Parker."
Her voice was trembling, as if a handful of barbed iron filings had been stuffed into her throat.
"Pym Technologies... belongs to you now."
Aaron raised an eyebrow.
The last sip of the cola can in his hand remained, and the ice cubes crashed against the metal can wall with a clattering sound.
He didn't go to help her up, nor did he show the slightest bit of surprise.
"For this kind of matter, it would show more sincerity if your foul-tempered old man came to talk."
Aaron leaned diagonally against the railing, casting a sidelong glance at Hope on the ground.
"Your appearance right now makes me look like a villain who stole a little girl's candy."
"Scott is a fool; he offended you."
Hope raised her head, her eyes bloodshot.
She didn't wipe the rainwater off her face.
"But my father... he is already old. He cannot protect the Pym Particles."
"Stark is eyeing it, S.H.I.E.L.D. is eyeing it, and even those HYDRA in the sewers are eyeing it."
She took a deep breath, her fingertips piercing the flesh of her palms from exertion.
"Rather than letting those people turn it into War Machine, I am more willing to hand it over to you."
Aaron unconcernedly shook the cola can.
"Hand it over to me? Aren't you afraid I'll turn it into something even more terrifying?"
Hope gave a bitter laugh, her line of sight falling on that trash can.
"You would turn Ultron into a floor-sweeping robot, and turn the old monsters of The Hand into ash."
"You have no interest in ruling the World."
"You just want to... quietly drink this can of cola."
Aaron pursed the corner of his mouth and didn't speak.
This woman's intuition was just a tiny bit sharper than he had imagined.
"Aside from Pym Technologies, I have one more request."
Hope lowered her body again, her forehead pressing close to the tip of Aaron's leather boots.
That was a posture humble down to the bones.
"I beg you... save my mother."
"She has been missing in the Quantum Realm for thirty years. Hank has tried his whole life; he is old, and he has no time left."
The air fell into a brief dead silence.
Only the sound of the wind swept across the balcony, stirring up a damp and chilly whistling sound.
Aaron pulled that black crystal Tesseract out of his pocket.
Quantum-level spacetime amplifier.
This gadget spun at his fingertips, refracting a dim blue light.
"The Quantum Realm..."
Aaron murmured in a low voice, his tone exuding a sense of disdain.
"It sounds like a broken warehouse piled with expired parts that hasn't been cleaned in decades."
He casually threw the empty cola can into the trash can holding Scott.
With a "clatter".
Scott was hit and muttered in his sleep.
"Stand up."
Aaron patted away the non-existent dust on the collar of his shirt.
"I will take you to take a look at that 'warehouse'. Make it quick, I don't want to miss tonight's talk show."
Hope was stunned.
She had originally prepared a whole bunch of lobbying speeches regarding profit distribution and technology sharing.
She had even prepared herself mentally for being humiliated.
As a result, Aaron only complained that that Domain was not neat enough.
She stood up, her legs feeling somewhat weak from kneeling for a long time, and she staggered slightly.
Aaron reached out and drew a circle in the Void Realm.
There was no red flash of Pym Particles, nor any complex contraction orbit.
The dark red Chaos mist overflowing from his fingertips was like a crude pair of scissors.
"Sizzling—"
The high altitudes of Manhattan were directly cut open into a black crack with a diameter of two meters.
Behind the crack was neither the starry sky nor nothingness.
But countless distorted colorful color blocks and irregularly beating geometric figures.
That was the entrance to the microcosm.
Aaron picked up Hope by the back collar, as if picking up a cat.
The two of them stepped directly into that crack.
The moment they entered the Quantum Realm, their senses completely collapsed.
There was no up, down, left, or right here.
Hope felt every cell in her body being elongated and instantly squeezed at the same time.
Countless miniature Universes like soap bubbles burst beside her ears.
That kind of sound was not auditory, but a shock that pierced directly into the brain marrow.
"So messy."
Aaron's voice suddenly exploded in Hope's mind.
Steady.
Powerful.
Like a calming needle planted in the midst of such chaotic turbulent waves.
Hope opened her eyes.
She shockingly discovered that she hadn't turned into infinitely small particles as Hank had previewed.
Aaron propped open a red transparent Domain.
Within this Domain, physical Law were forcibly fixed.
They were like walking in a huge scrap yard filled with all kinds of abandoned parts.
Floating all around were atomic nuclei larger than mountains.
Those colorful energy streams, like startled groups of snakes, ran around wildly around the red Domain.
"The time here is shattered."
Aaron frowned, his fingertips tapping on that black Tesseract.
"The timeline that should have gone smoothly has tied tens of thousands of dead knots here."
He closed his eyes.
The senses of Chaos Magic expanded outward along that energy flow.
"Found it."
Aaron opened his eyes, a flash of boredom passing through his gaze.
"Hiding in that old cabinet at the very inside."
His right hand suddenly grabbed forward.
A cluster of purple light bands in the Void Realm was forcibly grabbed by him, as if pulling on reins.
Aaron closed his five fingers and exerted force.
"Creak—"
Some grand Law belonging to spacetime emitted an unbearable wail.
He was actually forcefully pulling the timeline of this Domain.
The originally disordered fragments were forced to rearrange under Aaron's finger power.
A few seconds later.
In an energy bubble emitting a dim micro-light ahead.
A woman wearing a tattered red suit was sitting there blankly.
She held a broken half-probe in her hand, her eyes as hollow as a dry well.
Janet van Dyne.
The first-generation Wasp.
She had stayed here for too long.
Long enough that she had forgotten whether she was a human or a speck of dust in this chaotic Domain.
"Mom!"
Hope let out a shrill cry.
She wanted to rush over, but was blocked back by the edge of Aaron's Domain.
"Don't move around blindly, your current body structure is more fragile than tofu."
Aaron's tone was plain.
He raised his left hand and flicked gently against that energy bubble with his fingertips.
The red Chaos energy instantly wrapped around Janet, instantly erasing the quantum toxins that had eroded her body for decades.
Aaron picked up an old newspaper from a pile of sundries as if nothing.
He waved his hand casually.
Three figures instantly disappeared in the colorful microcosm.
San Francisco, Pym Technologies Laboratory.
Hank Pym was slumped in that wobbling wooden chair.
He clenched a bottle of pills in his hand, his knuckles turning white from excessive force.
Scott's signal on the screen had disappeared, and Hope's had disappeared as well.
He felt that all the arrogance he had accumulated in his life had turned to ash in this dead silence at this moment.
"Sizzling—"
The air in the center of the laboratory was forcibly torn open.
The red mist gushed out.
Hank suddenly stood up, the pill bottle in his hand dropped to the ground, and white pills rolled all over the floor.
He saw Aaron carrying Hope as he walked out.
And in Hope's arms.
That grey-haired woman wearing tattered red clothes was slowly opening her eyes.
"Hank..."
Janet's voice was as light as a fallen leaf, yet it accurately shattered the old man's final psychological defense line.
Hank Pym froze there.
He kept his mouth open, a "gurgling" sound produced by extreme choking coming from his throat.
He wanted to take a step, but found his legs as stiff as two rusted iron pipes.
In the thick folds at the corners of his eyes, large drops of turbid tears smashed against the floor along the bridge of his nose.
"Jenni... Janet..."
The old man let out a mournful cry, scrambled over, and hugged tightly onto those ankles stained with quantum dust.
He cried like a child who had lost his toy and got it back decades later.
Aaron stood aside.
He toyed with that black Tesseract at his fingertips, watching this scene of reunion without much fluctuation in his gaze.
A person like him was accustomed to life, death, and the shifting of dimensions.
In his eyes, this so-called emotion was not as attractive as the recipe for that can of cola.
"Finished crying?"
Aaron leaned against the edge of the experimental bench and casually fiddled with the micro-sensor on it.
The sound wasn't loud, but it made the wailing stop abruptly.
Hank Pym turned his head back.
That pair of eyes of his, which originally exuded arrogance and stubbornness, now only retained ultimate submission and gratitude.
He knew that the science he had studied his whole life.
In front of Aaron's casual snap of the fingers, it couldn't even be considered a joke.
The old man reached out tremblingly.
He didn't pick up the pills on the ground, but instead pulled a memory card printed with the core seal of Pym Technologies out of his pocket.
His hand shook violently, yet he pushed it firmly toward Aaron.
"It is yours."
Hank Pym's voice was hoarse, carrying a kind of fatigue after relief.
"All patents, all equipment, all equity."
"Mr. Aaron Parker."
"From now on, Pym Technologies is formally transferred to Heavenly Court Group."
"Unconditionally."
Aaron took that memory card and flipped it over at his fingertips.
He looked out the window; the night of New York under the night curtain had already lit up with dots of light.
In this World, yet another proud technology Empire.
Lowered its once peerless head in front of that trace of dark red mist.
Chapter 110: Pym Technologies Acquired, Aaron's Commercial Empire Fully Formed
Hank Pym's hands were still shaking.
The seal representing the highest authority of Pym Technologies was pressed inside a dark red velvet box by him, and tremblingly pushed to the center of the table.
That was the lifeline he had guarded all his life.
Aaron extended two fingers and pinched the cold metal seal.
He didn't look at the intricate patterns on the bottom of the seal, casually tossing it into his hoodie pocket.
The movement was as light as picking up a pleasing stone by the roadside.
"Since it's settled, I'll be taking Scott away."
Aaron tilted his head and pointed at the second-generation Ant-Man curled up in the trash can snoring.
Hank Pym supported himself on the edge of the table and stood up, his reading glasses sliding down to the bridge of his nose.
He opened his mouth, leaving only heavy panting in his throat.
He stared at his wife Janet in his arms, and then looked at the teenager in front of him who treated the Quantum Realm like a backyard.
All his arrogance, stubbornness, and prejudice against the Stark Family shattered into nothingness at this moment.
"He is yours, and so is the company."
Hank's voice sounded like it had been ground on sandpaper, carrying a sense of resigned despondency.
Hope stood aside, her nails digging deep into her palms.
She watched Aaron pick up the trash can, a red teleportation array tracing an arc in mid-air.
That back view was very casual.
Yet it weighed down so heavily that the precision instruments in the entire laboratory were humming.
...
Manhattan, the top floor of Stark Tower.
The clouds outside the floor-to-ceiling windows hung very low, and gray streaks of rain beat against the glass.
Aaron sank into the velvet sofa, his toes hooking a slipper, swaying it back and forth.
Three things were placed on the coffee table.
The board of directors' confidential letter from Oscorp Industries.
The 5% core equity certificate of Stark Industries.
And the newly acquired ownership certificate of Pym Technologies.
These three pieces of paper lay flat there, and their combined weight could instantly paralyze the global financial markets.
"Master, data integration is complete."
The Red Queen's phantom condensed on the carpet.
Her small hand waved in the air, and dense logical link diagrams exploded in the living room.
"Oscorp is responsible for biological genetics and reverse engineering of alien equipment."
"Stark is responsible for energy and automation architecture."
"Pym is responsible for spatial miniaturization and quantum dimension development."
The Red Queen's voice was cold and clear, like ice cubes hitting the wall of a cup.
"The supply chains of the three giants have achieved a logical closed loop."
"From now on, with just a thought from you, all factories in North America will stop operating within three seconds."
Aaron swallowed a sip of iced cola.
Carbonated bubbles burst in his throat, bringing a slight tingling sensation.
"Too messy."
Aaron stared at the chandelier on the ceiling, his eyes drifting a bit.
"Red Queen, cut off all these titles."
"Establish a new group. In the future, when those old men report their work, they will uniformly go through your interface."
The Red Queen slightly bowed, her red skirt swaying in the virtual light.
"Please name it, Master."
Aaron thought for a moment.
He rubbed the dark silver sling ring at his fingertips, a flash of Kamar-Taj's snow-capped mountains and Dormammu's aggrieved big face flashing through his mind.
"Let's call it 'Celestial Court'."
Aaron sat up and tapped his fingertips on the table.
"Although this place lacks Immortal Qi, it still needs a name that can command respect."
"Command confirmed: Celestial Group is officially established."
Countless lines of golden code flashed across the Red Queen's eyes.
Deep in the network invisible to ordinary people.
Wall Street's securities trading terminals suddenly showed a one-second red screen.
Countless covert cross-holding accounts were forcibly merged.
Those old foxes who had fought in the business world for decades were surprised to find that their highest authority had been erased.
The new owner had only one name: Aaron Parker.
This was a true dimensionality reduction strike.
There were no business negotiations, no premium acquisitions.
Aaron just sat at home drinking cola and stuffed the world's top technological resources into his pocket.
"Master, Vision is on the balcony."
The Red Queen reminded softly.
Aaron turned his head sideways.
Vision was wearing a dark red casual outfit, standing in the wind and rain on the balcony.
He didn't use an umbrella.
When the rainwater approached half a centimeter from his skin, it was repelled by the repulsive force inherent in his Vibranium body.
The Mind Stone on his forehead emitted a faint glow, drawing a thin yellow line in the rain curtain.
Vision was lowering his head, attentively wiping that string of brass wind chimes.
The stone struck the wind chime tubes, making a crisp clinking sound.
That sound exuded a sort of infrasound wave with an extremely high frequency.
Aaron narrowed his eyes.
This wavelength could not be heard by ordinary people's ears, nor could satellites capture it.
But for certain races that had metal induction engraved into their genes, this was no different from the Sun in the middle of the night.
...
Africa, Wakanda.
The city hidden under the holographic camouflage net was immersed in a silence called "technological primitivism".
Shuri pushed open the sliding door of the laboratory, and the tablet in her hand emitted a harsh alarm.
"Brother!"
She cried out urgently, running barefoot straight ahead.
T'Challa was draped in that black royal robe, standing at the entrance of the huge Vibranium deposit.
He turned his head, the leopard claw necklace on his neck swaying slightly.
"What's wrong?"
Shuri threw the holographic projection into mid-air.
A global thermal energy sensing map appeared in front of the two.
At the coordinate point of New York in North America.
A huge, purplish-red energy light spot was beating like a heart.
"The Vibranium sensor was shattered just now."
Shuri's voice was shaking.
"That is the highest purity Vibranium reaction. The energy level is at least ten times more than our total stolen amount over the past hundred years."
T'Challa's brows knitted into a knot.
He reached out and touched the stealth switch on the necklace.
"Stark's people?"
"No, the energy level far exceeds Stark's armor."
Shuri brought up a blurry surveillance footage.
That was the afterimage of Vision sweeping across the streets of Manhattan.
"This thing is alive."
Shuri pointed at the center of the screen.
"Not only does it possess Vibranium, but it also carries an unparseable, extremely high-dimensional life signal."
T'Challa was silent for a moment.
Wakanda had always been hidden in the shadows.
They guarded gold mines, coldly watching Mortals outside fight head-over-heels for a few grams of residue.
But now, someone in the clouds of Manhattan was squandering this sacred resource.
And that location was right at the doorstep of the one named Aaron Parker.
T'Challa took off his robe.
The black nano-suit quickly spread along his neck.
The sound of the metal armor plates closing was crisp and neat.
"Shuri, prepare the Quinjet."
"We are going to take back what rightfully belongs to Wakanda."
T'Challa put on the panther head mask, two cold purple lights lighting up in the eye sockets.
"Wakanda never participates in outside disputes."
"But no one can hang Vibranium on the balcony as an ornament."
...
New York, Manhattan.
The rain had stopped.
Aaron suddenly put down the cola can in his hand.
A slight tingling sensation came from the end of his spine.
That wasn't danger, but some powerful creature carrying a wild aura was approaching.
He turned his head and looked at the night sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The previously empty clouds suddenly distorted for a moment.
A pitch-black, bizarrely-shaped stealth fighter was silently hovering opposite the apartment.
The belly of the fighter slid open.
Several figures wearing black tight battle suits traced silver-bright arcs in the night.
They didn't use parachutes.
Just like that, jumping straight down from a height of hundreds of meters.
Heavily.
Smashing onto Aaron's newly repaired viewing platform.
The person in the lead pressed their palms against the floor, five slender alloy sharp claws dragging harsh sparks across the floor.
"Aaron Parker."
Black Panther's voice came through the helmet's loudspeaker, carrying a dull majesty.
He slowly stood up.
Behind him was Okoye's royal guards holding spears and with burning gazes.
T'Challa stared at Vision on the balcony wiping the wind chimes.
Finally, his gaze locked onto the teenager on the sofa who was still picking his ears.
"Hand over the Vibranium."
"Wakanda's laws do not allow any outsiders to meddle in this power."